The Bee Charmer (Expanded)
by The Raisin Girl
Summary: Needing a break from his hectic life, 17-year-old Dean Winchester decides to spend the summer at the country home of his friend Anna Milton. The Milton family is certainly a strange bunch, and the strangest and most fascinating of them all is Anna's younger brother, Castiel. Expanded from the one-shot into a multi-chapter fic of indeterminate but so far ridiculous length.
1. Prologue: The Bee Charmer from Alabama

The summer after he graduated from high school was shaping up to be more peace and quiet than the whole rest of Dean Winchester's life put together. His days—and nights—normally consisted of trying to pull up his D in English between playing peacemaker between his geeky kid brother and his surly father, making sure the latter went to work and remembered to pay the bills, and keeping Jo—the little girl down the street who followed him around like a lost kitten—out of trouble. But now he'd done it: he had graduated, albeit by the skin of his teeth, and he was going to Alabama to stay with Anna Milton's family until September. Although he was slightly ashamed to admit it even in his own head, Dean looked forward to the prospect of two months and a couple states' distance between himself and his everyday problems.

The Miltons were old family friends, though Dean had never met any of them beyond Anna. She'd been visiting her cousin Ruby since they were kids and schooling Dean at pretty much everything from Tag-You're-It to marbles to tree climbing. Dean was pretty sure their mothers had been friends as kids, but he couldn't ask anyone about it. Mary Winchester wasn't something they could talk about, not since she'd died when Dean was four years old. He didn't know what happened to Anna's mom, but if he wasn't going to ask questions about his own mother he certainly wasn't going to go prying about someone else's.

That was just another thing he needed to get away from, though; the oppressive silence from his father had started to grate ever since Sammy—the aforementioned geeky kid brother—had gotten old enough to start asking questions. Questions like "why don't we ever talk about Mom?" Dean needed a break, and so when the ever-perceptive Anna offered him a refuge for the summer, he accepted it with profound relief.

Dean had never so much as set foot outside of Lawrence before, and he drank in the sights with wide eyes the whole bus ride. The further south he went, the more the land seemed to rise up and roll around him, until he felt a little claustrophobic and a little sick; he was used to more open space and less motion.

Anna picked him up at the bus station in a little red Sidekick that had definitely seen better days. The engine sputtered reluctantly a couple of times before finally coming to life, and Dean gave the thing a consoling pat as he tossed his duffel into the back and slid into the passenger seat.

"Poor car," he said. "What is she, '89?"

"Ninety-three," Anna replied. "And don't tut over my car. She'll outlive us all."

"Not wheezing like that she won't," he retorted. "I can look 'er over for you sometime if you want."

"You're here to take care of _you, _Dean," Anna said, not unkindly, as she backed out of her parking spot—without checking her mirrors, Dean noticed with some chagrin—and screeched out of the bus station parking lot.

"Yeah, but I like messin' with cars. Helps me think."

"Well I'll tell you what," Anna conceded absently. "If after a week of living with Michael, Gabe, Luci, and Raphael you still want to do any thinking at all, you go ahead and mess to your heart's content."

Dean raised an eyebrow at her. He'd never heard Anna talk much about her brothers, and didn't even remember how he found out she had brothers in the first place. He supposed it was just talk. There was always plenty of that to go around.

By all accounts, the Miltons were a strange bunch. There were a whole lot of them, for one thing, and they were all kids and no parents. Sure, most of them were grown, but to a lot of people that made them stand out even more: it seemed odd for a bunch of brothers and sisters to keep living together in one house well after they'd reached adulthood. They were what Dean's neighbor Ellen called eccentric: they all had strange names and strange ways, and they kept to themselves for the most part.

Even knowing all that, though, Dean wasn't quite prepared for the reality of the Milton clan.

After driving for about two hours on the highway—during which Anna refused to let him choose even one song on the radio—the Sidekick finally turned off onto a much narrower road lined with closely-crowded trees. It meandered back for about five miles before Anna finally turned onto narrow gravel road so grown up with bushes and trees that Dean wasn't even sure how a person could tell it was there. He supposed you probably couldn't, unless you already knew it by heart.

The gravel road was surprisingly smooth, and only went back about half a very twisted mile before it opened out into a large, hilly field. The grass was tall and bright green, waving in the breeze as if greeting them. Dean could see that the tree line spread out in a ring all the way around, leaving a large, open area with an expanse of sky overhead while still shielding the whole property from the rest of the world.

The house itself was large, but not grand. It had two stories and a peaked roof. The wide, shaded front porch boasted a line of white wooden rocking chairs and several strange, wild-looking plants with round, purple leaves spilling out of green hanging baskets. To the right was a set of bay windows with old glass in the panes, so warped that he could see the distortions clearly in the reflected light of the sun.

It was painted a bright blue, with pale gray trimmings and shutters and a sunny yellow door. The second floor had several small windows, all open to reveal different colored curtains fluttering in the wind. Dean couldn't help but smile; it looked solid, and cheerful, and homey, like a family who loved it lived there.

Anna drove up the narrow dirt driveway that wound around to the back of the house, where Dean could see one other car parked neatly with its nose toward the low-roofed outcropping attached to the back of the house. She pulled the Sidekick in beside it, put it in park, and killed the engine.

"Take a deep breath, Dean," she said. "Prepare to face the madness that is my family."

Dean privately thought that she must be exaggerating, but sure enough, there were people spilling out of the house already, seemingly from doors on every side. Before Dean had even set foot out of the vehicle there was a hand clapping him on the shoulder and a jovial voice greeting him by name.

"Dean Winchester! Welcome to Hell, buddy! Ten bucks says you won't survive ten minutes of an Alabama summer."

The speaker was a young guy, maybe Dean's age or a little older, with a long, sharp nose and floppy brown hair. He had an air about him of mischief: crooked smile, shifty eyes, even the cheer in his voice seemed strangely false, as if he were trying to distract Dean with it.

"Gabe," Anna said, her tone a warning and a confirmation all at once. Dean grinned, guarded but determined to be friendly, and stuck out his hand to shake.

"Nice to meet you," he said. "And I dunno about that, it gets pretty hot in Kansas."

"Oh, I'll bet it does, Dean-o, I'll bet it does. But you know what you don't have in Kansas? Those infamous southern thunderstorms, with all their humidity and heat _lightning._" Here, he took the offered hand and Dean felt a shock and heard a loud _bzzzt _that made him yank his hand away and jump back.

Gabe cracked up, Anna rolled her eyes and groaned, and a grave voice spoke up behind him.

"That stopped being funny when we were children, Gabriel."

Dean jumped again, surprised, and turned to see a pair of wide, unfriendly dark eyes regarding him solemnly.

"Welcome, Dean," he said, oddly formal. Dean nodded and tried to utter a _thanks, _but then he found himself confronted with yet another Milton. This one was tall, broad-shouldered with neat black hair and assessing blue eyes. He exuded an air of confidence that Dean immediately found intimidating, but he only shook Dean's hand and introduced himself as Michael with a welcoming smile before putting a casual arm across his shoulders and turning him toward the house.

"Okay guys, it's been a long trip and Dean here is probably tired. Anna and I will get him set up in a room and you can all interrogate him at dinner."

Dean didn't like the sound of that, but as Anna and Michael led him toward the house ahead of the rest of their siblings, Michael leaned in conspiratorially to mutter in his ear.

"Don't worry, they're harmless. Mostly. Except for Gabe. Anyway!" He turned to Anna and raised his voice a bit. "Where shall we put our guest?"

"I figured Cassy's room would work, it's not like the little weirdo ever uses it."

"Perfect. I hope you like stairs, Dean!"

"Oh yeah," Dean said, already wondering if he'd made a huge mistake. "Love stairs. Who doesn't love stairs?"

"Good, he likes stairs. Then he won't mind ladders."

* * *

Despite his early misgivings, Dean had to admit that it was the most relaxing group of people he had ever been around. They were isolated from the world and perhaps slightly codependent, but it seemed to work for the most part, and even their constant banter and playful bickering was oddly restful. Like any family, they had their quirks and their freaks and their fights…but those were _their _fights, not his. He could observe quietly and then graciously pretend nothing had happened, like any good house guest. It was a relief, considering how many times a day he was used to breaking up fights between his dad and his own argumentative little brother.

It took him a few days to really meet the whole family and learn everyone's names; there really were a lot of them. Anna had four older brothers and two younger ones, and an older sister named Hester who was severe and silent, and who rarely said anything to Dean but seemed to dislike him the instant she laid eyes on him. He stayed out of her way.

Of the four older brothers, Michael was the eldest and clearly the head of the family. Raphael—the unfriendly stare of disapproval from his first day—was younger than Hester but older than any of the other boys. He was a steady, quiet, solemn person for the most part, but his younger brothers could have him in stitches if he felt there was no one nearby who he ought to impress. Gabriel and Luci were both older than Dean, and although Gabe was closer to a middle child he often acted like the baby of the family. He had an unquenchable sweet tooth and seemed unable to go a single day without playing a prank on one or another of his siblings—or Dean, who was quickly growing into his favorite target. They all groaned and yelled and made him clean up his messes, but it was clear as day that they all loved him for it. Even Dean, who was mightily sick of his pranks before the week was out, had to admit that he was funny…as long as he was being funny using someone else.

Dean had teased Luci about having a girl's name only once, and the look he'd gotten from Michael had made it very clear that he'd better never do it again. He wondered what God-awful name the guy had been given, that he would actually prefer to be called _Luci_, but he didn't ask. Luci was weird, even by Milton standards. There was something faintly manic about his pale, round face, watery blue eyes and sandy, straw-like hair, and about the way he was forever asking questions and debating his older brothers. He would routinely throw up challenges to the kinds of ideas that Dean—and practically everyone else in the room—tended to just take for granted. This usually ended in long, drawn-out debates with Michael about the nature of right and wrong. He honestly reminded Dean a bit of Sammy.

Dean didn't see too much of the younger three kids at first. Little Uriel was a joker like Gabe, but he grew shy around strangers and buttoned right up. As soon as he noticed Dean was in the room, he would shut his mouth and narrow his eyes and look so much like Raphael that Dean almost had to laugh at him. He managed not to, but just barely. Inias was by far the youngest, not more than seven or eight years old. He was a pale, shy little thing that looked a bit like Luci and a bit like Gabe. He kept close by Hester's side, but sometimes he would smile at Dean from behind her skirt. Once, he even waved.

There was one more member of the Milton family, but at the end of two weeks Dean had still yet to meet Cassy, the sister whose room he was currently crashing in. When he asked Anna about it she just smiled and said, "Oh, Cassy? Silly thing's probably out following the path of the flowers, or climbing trees, or talking to bees."

At Dean's questioning look, she merely smiled.

* * *

Dean spent his first few days just enjoying how it felt to go to bed when he felt the urge and wake up with the sun. It streamed through the gauzy white curtains of the guest room windows and fell on his eyelids, warming his face and coaxing a smile out of him before his eyes had really even fully opened. He always slept like a rock and woke feeling fresh and ready for the day, and the day never disappointed.

He went fishing in the nearby lake with Michael and Luci and traded jokes with Gabe, who only came along for the sunbathing. He'd stretch out on the dock on his back with his legs crossed in front of him and his elbows propping him up behind and just smile up into the sun, eyes closed. He seemed to have a sixth sense that told him whenever an errant sibling—or guest—was coming to splash him. Even Michael, who could move so silently it was almost eerie, couldn't sneak up on him.

"Try again, big brother," he'd say, opening one eye and smirking up at a dumbfounded Michael.

"Cassy's the only one who can sneak up on Gabe and you know it," Luci needled him lightly as Michael returned sullenly to their perch on the bank.

"Yeah, well…lucky for Gabe, Castiel's too busy being one with nature to come play." Dean thought Michael was inordinately bitter for someone who had merely failed to prank the prankster, but then again, that was Michael. He didn't take defeat very well.

It was nearly the end of the third week before Dean met the infamous Cassy.

Dean's room was a small, low-ceilinged attic that had at some point been painted and polished until it felt like a cozy bedroom. The bed was shoved into one corner, where a small square window facing east let the sun in every morning. There wasn't much else in the room other than a blue rug and a sturdy oak dresser, nothing to suggest the owner's personality unless you looked for the tiny details.

Dean had begun to pick up on them the first night: the small, neatly-carved shapes and symbols in the bedposts, the top drawer full of random bits and baubles, the small stack of books—_Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, On The Road, Night, Treasure Island, To Kill A Mockingbird_—shoved under the edge of the bed. Dean didn't go through the drawer beyond eliminating it as a possible place for his clothes; it felt like something private, and he didn't want to be a snoop. He did leaf through a couple of the books, to find notes scribbled in the margins in pencil, too messy for him to make out more than a word here and there.

These details were tantalizing, seeming to raise more questions than they answered about the mysterious Cassy, the final Milton sibling who apparently lived in the woods and stayed gone for days at a time without arousing any worry. He wondered if she would be friendly, like Anna and Gabe and Michael, or if she stare steely-eyed with disapproval at him, like Hester. Or she might be something altogether new; the way they talked about her, Dean got the feeling Cassy was a mystery even to her own family.

* * *

When Dean woke up on Thursday his first thought was that it must be cloudy out, because he immediately missed the warmth of the sun hitting his face and turning the insides of his eyelids red. He hazily contemplated what a day trapped in the house with the entire Milton clan would be like, and whether it would be rude to just stay in his room. Dean had managed to avoid Hester so far, and he didn't fancy the thought of spending all his waking hours under her disapproving stare. Seriously, he had no idea what he'd done to offend the woman—

Dean froze. He'd felt a puff of warm air against his skin, accompanied by the soft sound of a person sighing. His eyes snapped open.

There was an unfamiliar boy standing by his bed, leaning over him and blocking the sunlight from the window. He was slight and slender, but not delicate so much as lean, in that way that suggested he spent a lot of time running. His heart-shaped face was deeply tanned and slightly smudged with dirt, as if he'd just come in from a trek in the woods. He had apparently been staring rather intently at Dean as he slept, head tilted slightly to one side. The light from the window pooled behind the dark, messy hair that fell over his forehead, and it looked almost like a halo. His eyes were very blue.

"Didn't anyone tell you it's rude to stare?" Dean grunted, pushing himself up into a sitting position and squinting as the movement put the sun full in his open eyes. He vaguely wondered how on earth a strange boy had gotten into the house and all the way up to this room without being seen, and then wondered why he wasn't more disturbed by this whole situation. Some dude had been watching him sleep, for goodness' sake. Before he could work himself out of a half-asleep stupor and into the appropriate level of panic, though, the boy spoke.

"No," he said. His voice was both very soft and very gravelly. It made him instantly seem older than he looked. Dean shifted uncomfortably under his stare.

"Well, it is." He drew himself a little further back, propping his back against the wall behind him and feeling more awkward than he thought possible as the boy just continued to stare at him.

"I apologize," he said finally. "You're in my bed."

"I—what?" Dean blinked at him. Then—and he wanted to smack himself for not getting it sooner—it finally clicked.

"Cassy? I mean…sorry. I'm Dean." He held out his hand for the boy to shake, feeling like the world's biggest idiot. The boy took it, but didn't shake, just held Dean's hand in a firm grip as he continued to stare at him with those large, blue eyes.

"Castiel," he said emphatically, and Dean just nodded. What was he supposed to say? _Oh sorry, that's just what I've heard all your brothers and sisters call you. And by the way, until five seconds ago I thought you were a girl._

"Dean Winchester," Castiel was saying. "The boy from Kansas. You're Anna's friend."

"Right," Dean said. Silence settled again for a moment before he realized that he was just staring back at Castiel, still holding onto his hand. He pulled away and scratched at the back of his neck, directing his eyes toward the dust motes floating in the beam of light from the window.

"Well. It's, uh, been real nice meeting ya, Cas. I should probably get up and get dressed, though, so…"

Castiel tilted his head a little farther, brow furrowed, before his expression suddenly cleared.

"Would you like some privacy?"

"Yeah, that'd be great," Dean said, thinking _is this guy for real? _It figures that the missing Milton would be the weirdest of them all. This guy made Luci look downright ordinary. Or maybe he was just used to Luci by now.

After he'd dressed and shaved Dean shuffled downstairs to the bright little kitchen, where the Milton siblings were slowly filtering in from their various corners of the house. Despite regularly being host to nine hungry people, the kitchen was cozy and neat, with a gas-burning stove, oven, and sink squeezed into one corner and a long, narrow counter that ran the length of two of the walls. The fridge looked like something from the Cold War era, and the table in the center of the room was small, square, and could only seat four people at a time. As a consequence the Miltons never ate what Dean's dad called a "sit-down dinner." They would simply meander in and out in twos and threes instead, or crowd around the counter space and eat while standing up. On clear nights they sometimes ate while lounging on the porch, listening to crickets and taking turns telling Dean incriminating stories about one another.

The mornings, though, were usually quiet, and this one was no exception. Gabe was already at the stove, overcooking the sausage and putting too much cinnamon and sugar on the toast. Uriel had let his hair down enough, sans Dean's presence, to fall asleep again with his head on the table. He was drooling a little. Anna was leaning on the counter in front of the coffee pot, watching it drip just a little too intensely. Anna was barely human before she'd had at least a cup of plain black coffee, and watching her, Dean could suddenly see how that staring thing of Castiel's might run in the family.

The rest of them were nowhere to be found. For all her severe demeanor, Hester was anything but an early riser, and Dean was pretty sure Luci liked to spend an hour pacing in his room before coming down. He seemed the type.

Dean plopped himself in a chair and reached for a box of cereal.

"Hey Anna," he said. "Leave some elixir of life for the rest of us, okay?"

"Unnhh," was Anna's only response.

Castiel appeared just as Dean was finishing his coffee and toast. He slipped in silently and sat down between a fully awake Uriel and Luci, who looked as if he'd forgotten to sleep. Dean did a double take; Castiel had cleaned up. His face was clear of dirt smudges, his hair had been flattened out a bit, and he'd changed into, of all things, a white button-up and a pair of suit pants. Judging by his siblings' incredulous expressions, this was not normal Castiel attire. Dean raised a questioning eyebrow at Anna, who merely hid a knowing smile behind another sip of coffee. He gave her a half-hearted glare and turned his attention back to his cereal.

No sooner had Dean rinsed his plate and placed it in the sink than he felt a hand grasp his sleeve and drag him backwards, away from the sink so fast he nearly stumbled and fell.

"Hey! What—"

"Have fun, boys," Anna called through her laughter as Castiel dragged Dean out the side door and down the hill, across the open field toward the trees.

When they were almost at the tree line Castiel stopped so suddenly that Dean almost ran into him. Releasing his sleeve, the strange boy turned to him and reached out a hand.

"Come with me?"

"Uh…" Dean hesitated. "Where are we going?"

"I just want to show you something," Castiel said, eyes wide and earnest and fingers wiggling slightly in invitation. Without really considering it, Dean reached out and grasped Cas's hand in his.

His skin was warm and oddly textured, smooth in some places and heavily calloused in others. He squeezed Dean's fingers and shot him a quick smile that was all white teeth and worrisome mischief before turning and pulling him into the trees.

They half-walked, half-ran for about a mile, Dean stumbling a little too often for his ego's sake. He knew his way around the woods, but not these in particular, and Cas was clearly in a hurry. More than once a tight grip on his arm was all that stopped Dean from falling to the ground. He wondered what on earth could be so urgent.

When they had gone a couple of miles, Dean started to hear a strange whirring noise up ahead. He glanced at Castiel, but his bright eyes and the odd, determined twist of a smile that turned up the corners of his lips gave nothing away. The whirring grew louder as they went, until without warning they broke from the trees once more into another large, open field. The sun was bright in the sky overhead, which was the cloud-whisped cobalt blue of an Alabama summer. A slight breeze ruffled the grass, which had been bleached to a paler green by the constant sunlight and the unusually dry weather. There was a single tree in the field, and a few yards from that was the source of the noise Dean had been hearing.

It was a huge beehive, literally buzzing with activity. The air around it was clouded darkly with bees. Dean could barely take his eyes off this slightly horrifying sight as Cas lead him over to the tree and sat him down under it. It wasn't so hot in the shade, and the breeze immediately had the sweat cooling on his skin. He looked up at Castiel. His face was thrown into dappled shadow by the leaves and branches of the tree, but he was haloed again, in sunlight and the shimmer of distance bees. He leaned down into Dean's space, eyes sparkling with a secret joke that Dean thought he very much wanted to know.

"Watch," he said softly, and then he turned his back and started for the beehive with quick, confident strides.

Dean held his breath. He wanted to call out for Castiel to stop, but before he could make up his mind to actually do it Cas was all but obscured by the cloud of bees. Dean's words stuck in his throat, and he could only watch.

The hive was in an uproar. They buzzed angrily, converging on Castiel en masse. Cas showed no signs of distress or pain; he simply kept walking, right up to the hive itself. He stood on tiptoe and reached a hand up and inside. Then, movements still slow and deliberate, he pulled back and seemed to fiddle with something at his hip for a moment. Finally, he turned around and walked, a little more slowly, back towards Dean with a proud smile on his face.

Dean's mouth ached. He realized he'd been biting the inside of his cheek.

Castiel walked right up to him, completely free of bees, and held out a glass jar with a flourish. It was half-full of honey.

"Here you are, sir," he said jovially, suddenly a boy again. "This is for you."

Dean couldn't speak for a moment. When he finally did, his voice was harsher than he'd meant it to be. "Wh…why did you do that? You coulda been killed!" Castiel immediately looked crestfallen.

"I'm sorry," he said gently, drawing back the hand holding the jar to cradle it against his stomach. He tilted his head down, but his eyes never left Dean's.

"Don't you want the honey?" He asked in that same gentle voice. "I got it just for you." Dean was too busy scanning the bared skin of Cas's arms, neck, and face for tell-tale welts. Noticing this, Cas gave him a small, reassuring smile and leaned in a little.

"It's alright, I do it all the time. I never get stung." His voice dropped a little, seemed suddenly very small against the backdrop of the hive and the breeze. "Don't be mad at me, Dean."

Dean finally spoke. "Ah, Cas. I'm not mad at you."

"You're not?" Cas seemed immediately appeased. He smiled that small smile again and sat down across from Dean under the tree, crossing his legs and placing the honey jar between them. He found Dean's eyes again.

"Is it bad…what I did?" Dean scooted forward until his knees were almost touching Cas's.

"Nah." And there was that smile again, but tinged with uncertainty.

"Really? You looked as if you thought me insane." Dean smiled a little at that and shrugged his acquiescence, but at Cas's worried look he quickly reassured him.

"No, no, I've heard there were people who could charm bees. I'd just never seen it done…before today." It occurred to him that he and Cas were sitting kind of close, and staring at each other again, but he couldn't bring himself to pull back or look away. "You're just a bee charmer, Cas Milton, that's what you are."

Castiel really smiled at that, and Dean was once again presented with a lot of teeth and eyes fuller of mischief than even Gabriel's. It could so easily be a disconcerting smile, but Dean felt himself charmed instead. He wondered for a crazy second if he might be part bee.

Cas's smile softened a little. He unscrewed the jar and stuck a finger in to scoop up some honey. It was paler and cloudier than the stuff Dean was used to seeing in stores. Cas presented a sticky, honey-coated finger to Dean.

"Would you like to taste?"

Dean leaned forward without really thinking about it and took the offered finger into his mouth. The honey melted onto his tongue. It was light and sweet, with an unfamiliar tang that he thought tasted like the white dandelion blossoms he used to chew on back home. He pulled back, and his eyes locked with Cas's and wouldn't look away.

"Well…" Cas asked. "Did you like it?"

"Y-yeah," Dean said shakily, before leaning forward to kiss Castiel's lips.

Dean didn't understand what he was doing, or precisely where the urge came from. In seventeen years he'd never kissed a boy before, but he really wanted to kiss _this_ boy. His eyes were wide open as he pressed against Castiel's bottom lip with his tongue, tentatively asking permission. Cas's eyes were open, too, and Dean watched them go a little wider with surprise and then crinkle at the corners in a smile before they closed and Cas opened his mouth to kiss Dean back. Then there was a hand in his hair, pulling him closer, and a lean body leaning forward into his until he was on his back, hands gripping Cas's elbows, fingers sliding under the rolled-up sleeves before he moved to grip his waist instead. He had one moment of hazy certainty: he was definitely part bee, because this strange boy had charmed him without even trying. After that, all his thoughts were dedicated to memorizing the shape and texture and taste of Cas's lips against his.

He tasted like fresh honey.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Although very similar to one shot, this version of The Bee Charmer has been expanded and edited to be the setup for a much longer story. Thank you so much to my INCREDIBLE Beta (yes that deserves a capital B), ohamandalynn. I would never have had the gumption to continue this if it weren't for you. And yes I will send you the next chapter...someday soon. I swear!


	2. Chapter 1: The Boys of Summer

Castiel has not had an easy life. He knows contentment now, finds it in the miles of empty woods, in the buzzing of bees and the leisurely rhythms in which his brothers and sisters move around one another at home. But it's a hard-won peace, and he's old enough to remember that he didn't always feel this centered, or need to be alone so often to keep himself that way.

Castiel had a father he worshipped and a mother he thought hung the moon. They were his world as a child, and their love filled the house like a palpable thing. He used to beg his mother to tell him the story of how they met at night, over and over until she would insist that he had to sleep. It held a charm for him that fairy tales and children's books never had, even read in his mother's cheerful voice.

Rebecca Rosen was only fifteen when she met Charles Shurley. She was volunteering at the Olathe Public Library for the summer, a job she loved because it gave her unmonitored access to hundreds of books that her strict father would never have let her read. She spent her mornings organizing the stacks, her afternoons at the checkout desk, and on her lunch break she was working her way through all of Agatha Christie. On this particular day, the seventh day of July, 1977, she finished her morning work early and went to search for the day's reading. She pulled _The Affair at Stiles_ from the shelf to find a pair of grey eyes blinking at her from the other side, and shrieked, dropping her book and nearly knocking the shelf behind her over. Charles ran to help her up and handed her the fallen book with a sheepish smile. And that was that: love at first sight.

Charles was unlike anyone she had ever met. He was quiet, perhaps a little shy, but sweet and constantly smiling. He seemed to think everything from the way she did her hair to the way she walked was perfection, and she loved him with everything she had. These facts did little to move her father, of course, because to him Charles was a shifty-eyed drifter and Rebecca was only a child, but even her father's disapproval couldn't stop her. She'd never asked for a lot from life, but she wanted her Chuck, and when her father said no she smiled, agreed, and then ran away with him three days later.

They went to Alabama and bought an ugly old dilapidated house in the middle of nowhere with Chuck's meager savings. They picked a last name together when they got married, a symbol of a new start, free and clear. Chuck worked construction where he could find it and did seasonal work as a field hand for nearby farms—not that any of them were very nearby—and they poured all that money into the house, patching and painting and sealing and fixing until it was a sprawling dream of a place.

"And along the way," she used to say to Castiel, "we had you bunch. And we named you after angels and saints, because we knew God was watching over all of us. Which means God knows that you need to go to bed." And she would smile and kiss her little blue-eyed son on his forehead.

It's Castiel's most treasured memory, one he replays often so as to keep it sharp: the sound of her voice, the exact words she used, the way her eyes crinkled at the corners when she smiled. Becky Milton was such a happy woman, always laughing, even in the face of trouble. She taught her children to do the same, and they approached the challenges life brought them with smiles on their faces.

All of that changed when Castiel's father disappeared.

Chuck travelled a lot to find work, but he always came home as often as he could to spend time with his wife and his kids. Becky was only worried at first when he didn't come home on the day he'd told her. She thought his train might have been delayed. But as two days passed, then three, then four, she grew more and more anxious. After two weeks she was distraught. And when months passed without a sign of Chuck Milton, his wife grew pale and despondent with grief, and she never got better. Castiel watched the light fade from her eyes day after day until they were dull and lifeless. She stopped telling him stories at night. In fact, she stopped coming out of her room. By the time a year had passed with no word about her husband, it was clear to everyone but her youngest children that she was fading into nothing without him.

One day, Castiel's eldest sister, Hester, gathered them all together and told them they needed to "say goodbye" to their mother. Her eyes—the same grey-blue as her father's—were so desolate that Castiel didn't dare ask her where their mother was going; he thought he knew. He ran up to his room and shut the trapdoor and cried, and he refused to come out until Anna came to him and told him that if he didn't see his mother now, he might not get another chance.

Castiel dried his face and set his teeth, and walked into her room like a soldier marching to his death. The room was dark and smelled of dust and sickness. As he approached the bed he was almost cowed by how small and pale his mother looked in the middle of it. She looked up at him with sad hazel eyes, and he felt his heart break.

"Cassy," she rasped. It was the first time she'd spoken to him in months. She reached out a small hand to brush his hair out of his eyes, and Castiel tried not to shiver at the touch of her cold, bony fingers. They felt like death.

"Hello Mama," he said softly, gripping the hand in his own. "I came to tell you a story."

"A story?" She said, a slow smile spreading across her face. "What kind of story?"

"It's a love story," he said. Her eyes lit up and he was glad, viciously glad, that she was too far gone to hear the crack in his voice, to see the pain she was causing her children. The mother he knew would have hated it.

He swallowed that thought, and opened his mouth, and told her the story of Rebecca Rosen and Charles Shurley. He told it just the way she'd always told it to him, right up to the part where the two runaway lovers make their dream house together in the backwoods of Alabama.

"What happened next?" His mother said when he stopped talking, and Castiel had to stifle a sob. _He disappeared. She stopped living. You died._ Castiel smiled down at her, and when he spoke his voice was light and teasing, and it didn't shake at all.

"They had a bunch of kids, and they named them all after angels and saints because they knew that God was watching over them." He leaned in to kiss his mother's cold forehead.

"And God knows you need rest," he whispered. "I love you, Mama."

When Castiel pulled away her eyes were closed and there was a wistful smile on her pale, haggard face. He backed out of the room as silently as possible, went up to the attic, and sat in the dark. The next day Hester sat them down and explained that their mother was gone.

Castiel was ten years old.

* * *

Dean's summer passes in a succession of long, lazy days spent basking in the sun and the camaraderie of the Milton clan, fishing with Gabe and Raphael and even, occasionally, settling down next to Luci with a book in hand for a few hours of companionable reading. Dean isn't a big reader by nature, but years of being begged to read his brother one more chapter before bed have given him a few favorites.

His favorite pastime, of course, is disappearing into the woods with Castiel.

Dean follows the younger boy everywhere, running till his lungs ache and tripping over exposed tree roots, only to end up lying spread-eagled under their tree in a field shared with a colony of honey bees, heads laid side-by-side in the grass and bodies pointing away from each other, but hands reaching up to trace the outlines of faces and heads turning to press warm, honey-flavored lips together whenever the spirit moves them.

Cas tries to teach Dean to climb a tree as well as he and Anna. He shows him how to fish without a pole, and pays Gabe, prank for prank, for all the times he messed with Dean before Castiel showed up. He offers once to show Dean how to do his trick with the bees, but Dean refuses.

"You're magic, Cas," he tells him. "A magician never gives away his secrets."

At night they share the little bed in the attic, curled innocently around one another under the sheets. Castiel snores softly, and his hair tickles Dean's neck. He wakes up to a sleepy smile and a kiss, and never thinks twice about what any of it means.

No one in the family says anything about how much time the two of them spend with one another, or the fact that they're sharing a bed. That makes it easier not to wonder too much about the nature of this…thing they do. This kissing, sleeping, heart-flipping _thing _that Dean just doesn't think about. But sometimes Dean catches Hester glaring at him a little more hostilely than before, and more than once he thinks he sees a hint of worry in Anna's smile.

Castiel makes Dean laugh, though, like no one he's ever met. He's so serious most of the time, but it's not the same kind of serious as his older brothers. He's simply quiet, and infuriatingly literal, and divorced from the kind of social niceties that most people think make the world go 'round. Hell, society in general. Dean would be willing to bet Cas has never actually seen a movie in his life.

They're laid out on a towel, cloud-gazing, when Dean says that one of the clouds looks like the _Millennium Falcon_.

"That cloud looks nothing like a Falcon," Castiel states emphatically. Dean looks over at him disbelievingly.

"Dude…are you serious? You've never heard of the _Millennium Falcon_?"

"Should I have?"

"It's the ship that made the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs." Dean lets a lazy, lopsided grin slide onto his face. "I've outrun Imperial starships. Not the local bulk cruisers, mind you, I'm talkin' about the big Corellian ships now."

He pauses, waggling his eyebrows, but Cas just stares at him blankly.

"That cloud doesn't look at all like a ship, either."

"Oh, c'mon, man! You are not telling me you've never seen _Star Wars._"

Cas tilts his head to the side, the way he does whenever he doesn't understand something or is trying to figure it out—it usually being Dean.

"Should I have?"

"Uh, _yeah," _Dean says, sounding both floored and utterly indignant. "They're only the best movies of all time! You gotta see 'em, Cas, you will _love _Han Solo. He's so badass."

Castiel grins at his enthusiasm, and turns his attention back to the clouds.

"That one looks like Spock."

And Dean is thrown for a loop again, because how can anyone not know about the _Millennium Falcon_ but have Spock memorized by silhouette?

That's just something else about Cas that Dean likes, though: that mocking streak a mile wide. When Cas makes a joke he does it in the same deadpan tone he says everything else, which just makes it even funnier.

More than that, Dean feels _comfortable_ around Cas. He can relax. He doesn't have to take care of him, or worry about doing or saying the right thing to him. Dean says and does exactly what he feels like, and Castiel takes it all in stride. Sometimes, he even tells Cas things he never talks about with anything else, like about his dad's drinking, and his mother.

Dean adored his mother. He was only four when she died, but he remembers her. He remembers her tired eyes, her sweet smile, the way she could make his dad light up just by walking in the room. John and Mary weren't perfect, but they were happy, and Dean was a happy kid with a new baby brother.

When she died John became a different person. He climbed into a bottle and never really came back out, and Dean learned way too early how to take care of himself. He practically raised his little brother.

Sometimes he wonders if that's part of the reason he and Cas get along so well. He doesn't know what happened to Cas's parents, but he knows from Anna that they're both long gone and that Cas took it harder than the rest, but that's all she said. He wonders if Cas locked himself in his room to cry. That's what Dean did.

He doesn't ask Castiel any questions about it, and he doesn't tell him what happened to his own mother. He prefers to share the good things he remembers about her, the little useless bits of information that, in retrospect, seem so important. It feels good to bring her to life for Castiel, to almost see her ghost shimmer in the air as he talks about her.

"I wish you could've met 'er, Cas," he says one afternoon. He turns his head to look into electric blue. "She woulda loved you."

Castiel looks back, something in his eyes that Dean can't name, and gives him a sad little half-smile.

"I wish I could have met her, too."

They never talk about _them_, or even try to put a name to what they are. Castiel is the best friend Dean has ever had, and the only confidante. When he looks at Cas it feels like there's a balloon in his chest, one minute puff of breath away from bursting. Next to that, things like labels and overthinking don't really seem to matter.

* * *

One night, Dean wakes to the creaking sound of the rusty hinges on the attic's trapdoor. He notices that the space Castiel usually fills is empty, because the boy in question is currently poking his head up through the trapdoor.

"You're awake," he whispers, sounding surprised.

"Uh, yeah…light sleeper," Dean whispers back. "Cas? What're you up for? It's the middle of the night."

"I noticed," Cas replies wryly. "Now get dressed and come outside."

Dean has half a mind to be annoyed; it _is _the middle of the night, and he has no idea what Cas could possibly want with him outside at this time of night…but his curiosity (and the big, sad eyes Cas gives him) win out, and he tosses the covers back, grumbling. He crosses the floor to the dresser and pulls on the first things his hands touch, not particularly caring what. He slips his feet into his sneakers without bothering to untie them, bending the heels in the process, and finally climbs down the ladder to join Cas, who is waiting at the bottom in a state of furtive, nervous energy that seems totally unlike him.

Dean wonders how in the world Cas managed to crawl out of bed, get dressed, get down the creaky ladder, and then get back up it before he finally woke Dean with all the racket. He must've, though, because he's fully dressed in jeans, a dark long-sleeved t-shirt, and a pair of sneakers. As soon as Dean has successfully closed the ladder—without the usual resounding bang of the door snapping into place—Cas has him by the arm and starts tugging at him, trying ot lead him down the hall toward the stairs. Dean allows himself to be led despite the growing sense of trepidation at what they could possibly be doing sneaking out of the house in the dead of night.

"Where are we going, Cas?" Dean doesn't try to pull back again, but he's a little worried they could get caught, and he's sure the Miltons don't need any more reasons to think he's messing around with their kid brother.

"Trust me, Dean," he says in an eerily serious voice, without even looking back. "This is necessary."

"Yeah," Dean snorts, "And that doesn't sound creepy at all." But he follows Castiel anyway.

They don't head in the direction of the honey bee field. Instead, Castiel leads Dean around the back to the other side and across the wide open space, towards the little break in the trees that reveals the short dirt path down to the docks. The night air is unpleasantly moist and close against his skin, and the sound of crickets is almost deafening without the buffer of walls to muffle it. It's a new moon, and Dean stumbles a little in the dark, squinting ahead to try and make anything out. He thinks he sees several shapes standing near the campsite by the water's edge.

As it turns out, he's right. When they reach the fire pit they're met with four silent figures in dark clothing. Dean's eyes are adjusting, and he's barely able to make out a familiar smirk among the bunch.

"Gabe? Okay guys, what gives?"

"Relax, Dean-o," Gabe says teasingly. "It's an old family tradition, nothing to worry about."

"Somehow, coming from you, doesn't make me less worried," Dean shoots back sarcastically, but a hand on his arm stills him.

"It's alright, Dean," Castiel's gravelly voice sounds in his ear, and he barely suppresses a shiver at the warmth of Castiel's breath against his skin. "I promise you, you will not be hurt."

"Thanks, Cas," he says softly, and just like that he relaxes.

Michael chooses this moment to speak up.

"Plenty of people come to Alabama, for the warmth and the beauty, to befriend the carefree menfolk and romance the pretty ladies."

"Or, you know…the other way around, if you prefer," Gabe cuts in, earning himself an elbow from Raphael. Dean rolls his eyes and gives Cas a look that says _really?_ Cas grins minutely and shrugs one shoulder.

"But not everyone is cut out for the Heart of Dixie," Luci continues, sounding more jovial and animated than Dean has ever heard him. That definitely makes him nervous.

"And so we have devised a test," intones Raphael solemnly. "A test of wits, survival, and disposition, to weed out the worthy from the ranks of the weak."

"Dean Winchester, we would put this age-old and time-honored puzzle before you, to see if you are truly worthy of the land on which you stand," Gabriel finishes, a note of humor in his voice that says he knows just exactly how stupid this all sounds, and loves it anyway. There is an expectant silence for nearly a full minute before Dean speaks.

"Okay. Lay it on me."

He thinks he hears a sigh of relief from Castiel. Michael steps forward and spreads something out on the ground: a blanket. He motions for Dean to sit, and Dean does, crossing his legs and looking up at the five brothers, mystified but oddly intrigued by these proceedings. Their eyes and teeth glint dully in the starlight, eerie in their shadowy faces. He begins to wonder if there might be some truth to the rumors back home that the Milton family are more than just a little eccentric, but he shakes it off. He knows these guys, and he trusts Cas. He's not in any danger here.

Luci steps up to the edge and unfolds his arms from his chest, shaking out another blanket and throwing it over Dean's head, shrouding him in a deeper darkness and trapping the warm, wet air of the summer night against his skin. It's too hot and claustrophobic almost immediately, but he doesn't' remove the blanket. He is determined to pass this test.

"You are in a desert," Raphael says, speaking as if he is reciting from a script. "It is hot, too hot to bear. You need desperately to cool down."

_No kidding_, Dean thinks, but he remains silent.

"Consider your situation carefully," Raphael continues. "You may remove one item that will make you cooler, and hand it to us. If you have given us the correct object, you will pass the test. If not, you may try again until you have no more guesses left."

_Oh boy,_ Dean thinks as silence falls outside. _One thing,_ he thinks, _I can only take off one thing that's going to cool me down._ The obvious choice would be his jeans, since they have the thickest material and cover the largest portion of his body. Carefully, and not without misgivings, he unbuttons them. Shimmying out of them without removing the blanket is a difficult feat, and he grits his teeth at the stifled snickering from outside the makeshift tent. Eventually he does manage to remove the offensive pants and balls them up, sticking his hand out awkwardly and waving them at whoever is standing by.

"Here you go," he says. The jeans are taken from him by an unknown hand, and he hears a muffled chuckle that makes his heart sink slightly.

"Thank you, Dean," Michael says, voice devoid of humor, "But that is not the correct answer. You may try again."

"Okay," Dean says, hand still reaching outside the blanket. "But can you give me my pants back first?"

Someone is definitely stifling a case of the giggles now, and Dean would be willing to bet that it's Gabriel.

"I'm sorry, Dean," Raphael says, and Dean has to admire the guy's stoicism because he's pretty sure he's just been punked, big time. "You may have them back only when you have completed the test successfully."

"Are you…I…_dammit_," Dean bites out. "You gotta be frickin' kidding me!"

Gabriel loses it then, and Dean is surprised the rest of the house doesn't come running at the peals of laughter ringing off the lake and the nearby trees.

"Gabe," Michael says warningly, but there's an indulgent tone to the warning. "Dean, you may try again when you are ready."

Grumbling to himself, Dean strips off his shirt and hands it out to them.

He's far too warm and naked as the day he was born except for a necklace that Sammy gave him for Christmas years ago, and no one outside of the blanket is even attempting to hide their mirth any longer. Dean is pretty sure he can even hear Castiel's throaty chuckle mixed in with the others, and he is supremely annoyed with all of them.

"God dammit, guys, gimme back my clothes already, I don't care about your stupid test anymore."

"Nuh-uh Dean-o," Gabriel manages to wheeze. "You started the test, you gotta—_ha_—finish it!"

But Dean is tired, and hot, and it's muggy and suffocating under the damn blanket, and he really just wants to be back in his bed already.

"You know what, fine," he growls out. "You won't gimme back my clothes? Keep 'em. I'll walk back naked." He pulls the blanket off and stands up, glaring a challenge at the men around him, who have been stunned into silence at last.

"Damn," Gabriel says finally, letting out a low whistle. "I didn't get it at first, little bro, but at last I see the light."

And then they're all off again, falling over each other in their laughter, and Castiel hands Dean a neatly-folded pile of clothes, averting his eyes. Dean thinks if he could make out Castiel's face clearly, he'd be blushing as heavily as Dean is right now.

"Congratulations," Cas says quietly as Dean hastily throws his clothes on. "You passed the test." Dean freezes.

He looks at Cas incredulously as the other boy tries to hide a sheepish smile.

"You mean it was the damn _blanket?!_" Dean practically yells. The increased laughter of the brothers is his answer, and Castiel's smile turns into an apologetic grimace.

"It took me the better part of four hours to figure it out," he offers sheepishly. "Then again, I wasn't as…nonchalant…about my body as you are."

"Awesome," Dean grumbles, tugging his shirt over his head. A hand claps on his shoulder and he turns to see Michael grinning a thousand watts at him.

"Don't be too mad, Dean," he says, voice full of warmth. "We've all done it, and Luci wasn't nearly as good a sport about it, let me tell you. You're officially a Milton now! Go with God."

After that, Dean's frustration ebbs away somewhat.

* * *

He thinks really stupid things sometimes, things about Cas that he would never say out loud. Like that Cas reminds him of Peter Pan, the mythical boy who will never grow up running wild and barefoot in the woods, swinging through the trees and whooping like a madman at the sky, just for the sake of making noise. That part of Cas tugs at something in him, some feral deep-buried impulse that wants to see the world, howl at the moon, touch the sand of the ocean floor with his bare toes or find out first-hand whether there's really any life on Mars.

At other times, Cas is quiet. He reminds him of the rock spirits and tree spirits he's read about, solid and still, there to provide shade and a presence as his back but no sounds and no disturbances. It's so calming, the way they sit sometimes with their backs together and their knees drawn up to their chests, staring out at opposite ends of the world while remaining joined in the middle. Sometimes Dean will reach his hand back and grope around to find Cas's, and he'll just hold it there between them, an extra point of contact to anchor them.

Then Castiel will lean his head back to rest on Dean's shoulder, and his hair will tickle the side of Dean's neck until Dean can't help but twitch, and Castiel will laugh and turn to curl into Dean's side and press a kiss to his cheek. And just like that the spell is broken; they go from the axis of the world to two teenage boys again, and Dean can pull Cas into his lap and tickle him until Cas tackles him to the ground, pins his arms up over his head, and kisses him breathless as punishment.

The thing is, it doesn't matter _what _he's doing with Cas. Whether he's the Lost Boy following his fearless leader through Neverland or Alice, trading kisses with her other half through the mirror…he just feels _good. _Happy. He could do that one thing forever and never want anything else.

Sometimes he thinks about home with a sickening jolt, and wonders whether Sammy's staying out of trouble and John is staying sober enough to keep the house from being foreclosed. Every time Cas is there, to ferret out his worries with a tilt of the head and a squint of the eyes, unfurrow his brow with a kiss and tease out a smile with the strange things he says and the stranger way he says them.

Dean's so happy that he almost doesn't even feel guilty about not wanting to ever go back home.

* * *

It's one of those dreaded rainy days, so Dean is stuck inside with the entire Milton clan at once, and as always he finds them a bit overwhelming en force. Hester is giving him her death gaze from over the top of the book she's reading in the corner. Uriel and Inias are roasting marshmallows for their hot chocolate in front of the fireplace, and Dean finds himself watching them anxiously, worrying about burned fingers and singed hair even though no one else seems to pay them any mind. Luci is in his room, but his absence is oddly conspicuous; Dean swears he can feel him brooding through his bedroom floor.

Michael is in the dining room, figuring up their account books, and Anna is working on supper in the kitchen, with Gabe's help. Dean can hear them arguing over how much maple syrup and brown sugar to put on the ham.

"You're _drowning_ it," she gripes. "Some of us like a little food with our seasoning."

"Well _some_ of us appreciate that you can never have enough flavor," Gabe retorts. Dean rolls his eyes. Gabe would season cheeseburgers with sugar if he thought he could get away with it. The guy's sweet tooth is really out of control.

Raphael is reading his Bible on the other sofa, seemingly engrossed in the words, eyes wide and intense as he takes in all that godly wisdom. His intensity would freak Dean out, make him think Raphael was secretly some kind of religious nut, if he didn't know that that was just how Raphael's face looked most of the time. He did everything with that same level of single-minded passion.

Castiel had curled up on the sofa next to Dean, and is currently busying himself with falling asleep in just the right position to make Dean's shoulder go numb. Maybe that's why Hester is glaring so pointedly at them; too much touching in front of the children? Whatever it is, Dean ignores her and carefully shifts himself and Cas so that the latter is laying curled across his lap, face nuzzling into the soft flannel fabric of his shirt as he tries to turn his concentration back to the book he was reading, one hand playing absentmindedly with strands of Cas's hair.

No one has said anything else about the two of them since the night of the brothers' prank, and Dean and Cas still don't really talk about it, either. They've started to be more obvious, though, in front of the rest of the family. Like now. Dean doubts whether anyone could look at them and get a _just friends_ vibe from the way they're tucked together. It warms something inside of him to think about that, even as it slightly terrifies him.

He's halfway through a chapter when Cas blinks awake and squints up at Dean through one eye.

"Dean?"

"Yeah, Cas?" He says, putting his book aside immediately and focusing all his attention on the tousled, sleep-slack head in front of him.

"M'tired."

"I kinda figured," Dean responds, voice gently mocking. Castiel scowls.

"Goin' to bed."

"Okay. You want me to wake you up for supper?"

"Nah," Castiel says, slightly more coherent as he sits up and stretches. Dean tries his best not to let his gaze linger too long on the strip of stomach exposed when Cas's shirt rides up with the motion. "I'll get up. See you in a little while."

He leans forward and places a sweet kiss on Dean's cheek. Hester glares and Inias giggles, but otherwise no one says anything.

* * *

Anna manages to pull him aside before lunch one afternoon soon after. He hears Hester order Castiel upstairs to "at least get the leaves out of your hair," before she'll let him fix a plate for supper, and he smiles because he knows exactly how the leaves got there. Anna takes in that smile for a moment before she speaks.

"I'm worried about my brother," she confesses. Dean blinks, and frowns.

"Cas? Why?" Anna seems to struggle with how to answer, and when she does Dean understands why.

"Castiel doesn't take to many people," she says softly. "He hasn't since…well. I worry about what it will do to him when you go back home. I don't like to see my brother hurt."

"Anna," he says sincerely, "I would walk through Hell and back before I'd intentionally do anything to hurt your brother." He startles himself with his own words and how much he means them, but Anna doesn't seem all that surprised.

"I know it," she says. "I just wonder if he does."

Dean doesn't know what to say to that, and for the first time there's a topic he doesn't know how to broach with Cas.

Cas brings it up before Dean gets around to it.

"You're going back to Kansas soon," he says one day, out of the blue. They're sitting on the railroad tracks, watching the leaves shimmer in the light breeze. It's turning cooler already, early for Alabama. Dean turns to look at Castiel and sees that his eyes are fixed on the trees, unblinking.

"Cas—" he starts to say, but Castiel stops him.

"I know you have a family to go back to," he says without turning. "I always knew you couldn't stay forever."

"Sometimes I wish I could," Dean offers quietly. Castiel does turn to look at him then, eyes wide and somber and so _blue_. Dean wishes he could crawl inside them and hide. He misses his brother and his dad, but he doesn't miss their messy life in their dark, dingy house with the curtains always drawn. He doesn't miss feeling like he'll never have a future or a life of his own until he's done taking care of everyone around him.

He _does_ miss Castiel, already, misses him like a phantom limb even though he's right there, those eyes boring into him from scarcely a foot away.

"I wish you could, too," Castiel says before he closes the distance between them. His hands are rough and warm on Dean's cheeks, his lips dry and face slightly scratchy—he isn't as meticulous about shaving as Dean is. Dean sighs into the kiss and covers one of Cas's hands with his own, tangling the other in his dark hair, body humming with need even as his mind prepares itself to deal, somehow, with the loss of this in just a few short days.

If he knew in that moment just how short those days would be, he would have kissed Castiel longer.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Yes, I'm aware that the prologue and first chapter are written in different tenses. The rest of the story will be written in the present tense as well. Thank you again to my Beta, ohamandalynn. You are wonderful and awesome and you answer so many of my weird grammar questions! I hope I didn't accidentally include any mortifying mistakes in the parts that have been added since you last looked over it. And chapter three is IMMINENT, I swear. It's almost done.


	3. Chapter 2: The Angels Have Gone

They aren't there when it happens. Not that it matters, not that it would have changed anything…but then again, who knows? That morning Michael asks Dean and Cas if they want to join him and Gabe for a fishing trip, but they already have plans, so they decline. Maybe if they'd gone along it all would've turned out differently. That's what Dean keeps thinking after.

They knows something is wrong the minute they come to the edge of the woods behind the Miltons' house. It isn't anything they can see; it's just a feeling in the air. It's too still. The house is dark and quiet, the usually cheerful, bright windows are dark. Dean thinks for the first time that the warped glass looks secretive and sinister.

The one car the Miltons keep for driving into town every week or so is gone, even though it's Wednesday evening and they never go anywhere on Wednesdays. Dean and Cas approach cautiously, knowing without having to ask that the other feels it too. They don't look at each other before Cas opens the back door that leads into the kitchen, but their hands find each other.

Anna is sitting at the kitchen table, drinking what looks like coffee. Irish coffee, judging by the bottle on the table. Her face looks drawn and pale, heaping years on her she's yet to live, and her eyes are red-rimmed and shadowed with some horror that Dean wants to run from before it latches onto him and Cas as well. She doesn't even look up when they come in, not until Cas sits down across from her and gingerly reaches out for one of her hands.

"Anna?"

Anna jerks in her seat and stares at Castiel for a long moment before her eyes shoot to Dean and then back. She looks ready to break apart, and Dean suddenly feels a familiar sort of helplessness creeping over him. He knows that look.

"Anna," Castiel says again, more insistently this time. "What is it?"

Her voice, when she speaks, sounds as cracked and frayed around the edges as she looks.

"Michael," she croaks. "It's…he's…oh _God_." She pulls her hand away from Castiel so it can cradle her head, and a choked sob breaks its way out of what Dean suddenly realizes was her best attempt at a calm façade. That's when he knows.

"Anna, you have to tell me what happened. What about Michael?" Castiel sounds faintly desperate now, like he knows too but is begging his big sister to tell him he's wrong. Dean wants to reach out to him somehow, hold him back from the truth before it does to him what it's done to Anna.

She presses both hands to her face and her whole body seems to shudder, and then she's looking at them, her face blank but her voice betraying just how close she still is to losing it.

"Michael and Gabe were out fishing off the tracks, you know, on the bridge. On the walk back, Gabe slipped, and Michael was trying to pull him up. He did, but his foot got stuck between the rails. While he was stuck there the train came, and…he just…he couldn't get loose in time."

And Dean suddenly knows what they mean when they say imagining is worse than seeing, because his mind is offering up a thousand horrifying images of Michael's body mangled beyond recognition, bones crushed, blood smeared across the tracks and the wheels of the train. He tries to block it out but the harder he tries the worse it gets, and then five minutes have passed and no one has said anything. He tears his eyes away from where they've been glued to Anna's face and looks at Cas.

It's like looking at a shale statue. He's pale and perfectly rigid, but Dean gets the feeling if he blows too hard in Cas's general direction, he'll crumble to dust. He doesn't even know how to begin to reach out and comfort him through this. He's watched the Milton family for weeks now, knows their routines and their ins and outs as well as an outsider can, and he knows that Michael is the glue. The rest of them look up to him, and he keeps them together and sane. It would be like Dean's father dying, and he can't imagine that, either. He reaches a tentative hand toward Castiel's shoulder, laying just his fingertips against the fabric of his shirt before he slides his hand home to grasp the muscle gently, willing some warmth and life to flow back into Cas from him.

Cas sags backwards into the touch, goes from rigid to boneless in seconds, and Dean is stepping forward to scoop him up out of the chair and half-carry him up the stairs to lie down.

Cas doesn't help or resist as Dean pulls of his shoes and tucks him under the covers. Once his head touches the pillow, he curls onto his side with his face to the wall and just lies there. Dean hesitates by the side of the bed, feeling worse than useless and not knowing what to do. He starts to back away, deciding to leave Cas alone for a while, but at the sound of the retreating footsteps Cas's whole body tenses, tightening into a ball. A small, wounded sound escapes him and that does it for Dean.

He crosses back to the bedside and hastily toes off his shoes, laying down on top of the covers and curling himself around Cas as best he can. Cas turns and practically melds himself to Dean's chest, pressing his face into the crook of Dean's neck. Dean can feel him shaking, and he swallows around a lump in his throat. He holds Cas close, cradling his head with one hand and wrapping a sheltering arm around his back, tucking him into his body as fully as possible and trying just to be there for him.

"I'm sorry," he says softly. "Cas, I'm so sorry."

Castiel doesn't say anything. He just curls in on himself a little tighter, buries his face a little harder, and cries.

* * *

They must have fallen asleep, because the next thing Dean knows he's blinking awake to sunlight filtering in through the curtains, and an unnatural quiet broken only by the steady sound of Castiel breathing. He can feel the other boy's chest rising and falling against his, and he wraps his arms a little tighter around him, pressing a kiss to the top of his messy hair.

He doesn't say "good morning." He knows better.

When they finally climb out of bed, the sun is slanting in a way that tells Dean it's closer to noon than morning. They're still in their clothes from yesterday and he's willing to bet he looks as rumpled as Cas does. There are deep shadows under Castiel's eyes, which are red and look swollen from crying. The sight makes Dean ache.

They don't say a word as they tiptoe down the stairs, Castiel's hand clasped in Dean's. The unusual silence presses in around them; most mornings the house is full of shuffling and muttering, the clatter of plates and silverware and the smells of breakfast and hot coffee. It's cold and dead quiet now, though, the warm yellow light of the sun somehow tired out and watered down as soon as it enters the windows, turning the house a dim gray. Dean thinks bizarrely that if sorrow has a color, it's this.

They peak into the kitchen and find no one, but a voice calls them from the living room. It's Hester.

"Dean? Castiel? Is that you two in there?"

"Yes, sister," Castiel says, and Dean winces at how hoarse and tired he sounds.

"Castiel, the rest of us are at the church. Could you please go help Anna keep the younger ones in line?"

"Yes ma'am," Castiel says, turning towards the door and pulling Dean with him. Hester's voice stops them before they cross the threshold, still calling out from the living room and sounding oddly hollow.

"Dean, could I speak to you? Castiel, you go on ahead."

Dean's stomach twists. He wants to balk at the very thought of leaving Castiel alone when he's so obviously distraught, but on the other hand he doesn't want to intrude on the Miltons' grieving. How can he deny Hester anything right now?

He looks to Cas, and the other boy nods reluctantly before releasing his hand with a light squeeze and turning to walk out the door alone.

Dean moves through the foyer towards the living room, everything in him screaming to be going the other way. Hester is sitting slumped against the couch cushions as if she's hoping to be swallowed by them whole. She looks gray, her face lined and tired, and when she meets his eyes there's no dislike there, only defeat and sadness. For the first time he finds that he cares as much about her as he does the other Miltons—maybe not as much as Cas, but Cas is special—even with a summer of avoidance and mutual, quiet dislike between them. This was never anything less than the best summer of his life up until yesterday, and she was a part of that.

"Hester," he says quietly. "I'm…I can't even tell you how sorry I am. Is there anything I can do? Anything at all?"

When Hester lifts her eyes to meet his, he knows he's not going to like what she says next.

"I hate to ask it Dean…but I need you to go home. We have a lot to think about and get done over the next couple of weeks. Michael…he took care of everything. He kept this family together, and now…" Her voice breaks, and she has to press a hand over her mouth to stop the sob that wants to come flying out. Dean can see it all over her, the exhaustion and the regret and the despair, and even though the thought of leaving Castiel tears him apart, he can't bring himself to argue with her.

"Sure," he says, voice husky. "I'll go. I'll go start packing right now. Just…let me say good-bye to Cas first?" Hester sniffs, and coughs, and it sounds like another attempt to cover up tears.

"Of course," she says. "Please say good-bye to him. He'll be so hurt if you don't." She offers Dean a watery smile.

"I'm glad you befriended my brother, Dean Winchester. Castiel doesn't make many friends."

He smiles back, but the truce feels hollow. He's going to have to leave Cas in this mess, today. He wonders when—or if—he'll see him again.

* * *

Sammy Winchester is on his knees on the couch, turned facing the open window behind it, eyes glued to the road and lanky body bouncing up and down in uncontrollable excitement. He looks more like a little kid than the overgrown teenager he's becoming, and it makes John smile.

"Calm down, sport," he says mildly from his place in the recliner on the other side of the room. "He'll be here before you know it."

Five minutes later the jumble of arms and legs that makes up John's younger son explodes off the couch and streaks out the door before John even has time to know what happened. He chuckles, folding up his paper and setting it aside, standing and feeling his bones creak as he follows Sammy out to the front yard at a much more leisurely pace.

The car bearing his oldest child home stops in the driveway and Dean steps out, a suitcase in each hand and his eyes squinting against the late afternoon Kansas sunlight. He barely has his footing before Sammy tackles him in a hug that has more elbows in it than should be physically possible.

"Dean!" Sammy screeches gleefully, his changing voice going through two full octaves in his excitement. Dean laughs and hugs his brother back, dropping both suitcases in the dirt as he does so.

"Sammy!" he crows, arms tight around his skinny shoulders while he wonders _how_, over a single summer, the runt has gotten taller than him. "Man, it's good to see you." He pulls back and looks at him. "But wow. I didn't know my brother was part moose."

"Shut up," Sammy returns, grinning. "You're just mad I'm taller than you now."

"Hell yeah I am," Dean allows, before turning to pay the driver and picking his suitcases up off the ground. He hands one to Sammy, who takes it and turns with him to head towards the house. Dean meets his father's eyes and smiles tentatively. John smiles back, a wide and genuine thing, and Dean feels something in him loosen.

"I have so much to tell you!" Sam gushes at him as they walk up to the house. "You won't even believe some of it, I bet! It's been one crazy summer!"

Dean listens to his brother ramble on with an unconscious smile on his face. It's good to be home.

* * *

When he finally closes the door to his room—after a long day of celebratory homecoming visits and dinner with the Harvelles and Bobby Singer, not to mention Sam's endless storytelling and John's quiet, fond regard—Dean is so exhausted he could just collapse. He doesn't yet, though. Instead, he heads over to the little desk his dad built him when he started high school. The old man was drinking a little hard when he did it, so the desk is lopsided, but Dean loves it and wouldn't trade it for a level desk any day of the week. He opens a drawer, pulls out a blank sheet of paper and a pen, and sits down to write.

_Dear Cas,_

_I just wanted to let you know I'm back home with my dad and my brother. Sammy's grown like a weed! He's taller than me, which is going to be a big problem. Little bitch is getting too big for his britches already, saying he can take me in a fight. Gotta nip that one in the bud right away._

_My dad seems different. He's quieter than usual, and I think maybe he's laid off the booze a little bit. That's good; it's not good for him, and he doesn't work enough when he's drinking too much. Go figure._

_I miss you already. I wish I could be back there with you right now. Better yet, I wish I could bring you here. I bet you'd like Kansas. It's not pretty the same way Alabama's pretty, but it's got its own charm, I guess you could say. There's not a lot of places to hide, but then again there's nothing here I've ever needed to hide from._

_Maybe I'll see you next summer. I'll write as much as I can between now and then, though. I promise._

He doesn't mention Michael or leaving so suddenly. He already knows Cas won't need or want the reminders. He doesn't put _Love, Dean_, because they've never said those words to one another. He doesn't put _Sincerely, Dean,_ because of course he's sincere. He's never felt the need to be any other way with Castiel. In the end he just signs his name at the bottom, without anything else. He folds the sheet of paper into thirds and stuffs it into the envelope he pulls from another drawer. He plans to drive into town tomorrow and mail it out.

He's just finished tucking the envelope into one of the little nooks on the left side of the desk when he hears a soft knocking. Turning in his chair, he sees Sammy peaking his head through the barely cracked door, looking uncertain.

"Hey, Dean. Can I come in?"

"Sure," Dean says. It doesn't matter how tired he is, he always has time for his little brother. He gets up from his desk chair and goes to sit cross-legged on the bed, bracing his palms on his knees. Dean pulls out his most attentive stare as Sam shuts the door behind him and crawls onto the bed, facing Dean and mimicking his position. His solemn baby face looks so ridiculous perched atop that giraffe-like body, staring all somberly, that Dean almost wants to laugh. Of course, he doesn't.

"How are you, really?" Sam asks bluntly and, as far as Dean can tell, out of nowhere. He hasn't acted strange all night, he knows that for sure. He went to great lengths not to worry anyone, and his act even seemed to fool Ellen and Bobby, who were two of the most perceptive people Dean had ever met.

Then again, nobody knows him quite like Sam. Dean sighs.

"I'm fine, Sammy, really." Sam raises an eyebrow, and Dean scowls at him. "Look…this summer…it was weird. I got real close with some of the Miltons and I'm gonna miss 'em. And leaving early because their brother died wasn't exactly the best way to come home." Sam nods, his eyes wide and sympathetic.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I was just worried."

"Well don't be," Dean says, grinning crookedly. "I'm the big brother and that's _my_ job. Speaking of which…how're things around here?" He drops his voice a little. "Dad seems better off."

Sam shifts, drawing his bent knees up to his chest and hugging them to himself with his ridiculously long arms.

"He is, mostly," his brother says softly. "He doesn't drink as much and he sleeps most nights. Goes to work most days, too. We've been good, actually. Not great…but better. I hope it sticks this time."

"Me too, Sammy," Dean says. And suddenly, Dean wants to tell his brother everything. He wants to tell him that he didn't just get close to the Miltons, that he got _really_ close to one of them. That he kissed one of them and it was a guy, and that those were the best kisses he's ever had. That even though he's glad to be home all he can think about is hitch-hiking all the way back to Alabama to see him again.

"What're you thinkin' about so hard?" Sam asks, studying his face from across the bed. Dean sighs again.

"Nothing," he says. At Sam's skeptical look he relents and throws up his hands in a defensive gesture. "Look, I'm not ready to talk about it yet. Just…ask me again some other time, okay?"

"Okay," Sam says determinedly, and Dean groans inwardly because he knows just how nosy his little brother can be.

* * *

Sam waits a full week before bringing it up again. They're in town getting some groceries and some school stuff for Sam—classes start back in a couple of weeks—and Dean stops off by the post office to drop a letter in the mail. He feels like maybe he's being a little obsessive, seeing as this is the third letter he's written to Cas in a week, but he can't help it. He got used to seeing the guy every day, and telling him all the things he never talks about with anyone else, not even Sammy. He figures if Cas is bothered by it he can write back and tell him to knock it off.

"So…is it some other time yet?" Sam asks when Dean climbs back into the car. He's folded into the passenger seat almost in half; the little junker Bobby let Dean fix up in his salvage yard doesn't offer nearly enough leg room to accommodate his brother's alarming growth spurt.

He's looking at Dean with big, expectant eyes. It's the puppy face that gets him his way every single time, and Dean knows now will be no different. Even if he refuses to tell Sam about it right this minute, he eventually will. Dean takes a deep breath.

"Okay, you gotta swear you will never tell anyone about this, not even if they hog tie you down and try to torture it outta you. Not Dad, not Bobby or Ellen or Jo, not anybody. Got it?"

"Got it," Sam says emphatically, with a jerky little nod of his head for emphasis. Dean blows a heavy breath out of his nose, facing forward with his hand on the gear shift and trying to figure out how he can even begin to explain Castiel. He puts the car in drive and pulls out into the street, keeping his eyes on the road as he talks.

"I stayed with Anna, you know that. You remember Anna, right?"

"Yeah," Sam says. "She's the one who always comes to visit Ruby."

Dean grimaces a little; he's not a big fan of Ruby Rosen, and he doesn't understand how the Miltons' mother could possibly have come from the Rosen family, but he doesn't say that. He knows Sam likes Ruby, and it will just start an argument.

"Right," he says instead, albeit a little more tersely than he probably needed to. He softens his tone as he continues. "Well, Anna has a big family, lots of brothers and sisters. And I got…real close…with one of 'em. We spent a lot of time together and I…I really miss 'em."

Sam is looking at him as if he's trying to figure out what's strange about Dean's evasiveness. He furrows his brow.

"So when you say close…you mean like kissing distance?"

"Uh…yeah," Dean bites out, keeping his eyes on the road. He hates himself a little for dancing around it like this, but he's trying to put as much space as he can between himself and the moment he tells his brother he's head over heels in love with another guy.

"What was their name?"

"Cas," Dean says easily, remembering _Cassy_ with a little smile.

"Okay, Cas," Sam says, trying the name out. "That's a nice name."

The car is silent for a few minutes after that, and Dean lets out a breath. He starts to hope that will be the end of the conversation.

"So is Cas Anna's brother or sister?"

Dean nearly runs the car off the road.

"What the hell, Sammy!" He yells as he wrenches the vehicle back into the right lane, giving his brother a panicked look. He _was _going to tell him, he insists to himself, he really was…but he didn't expect Sam to just blurt it out like that. The little brat looks remarkably unfazed for someone who just sent Dean's heart beating ninety miles an hour while plummeting straight to the soles of his shoes. He gives Dean an unimpressed look, and shrugs.

"It's a simple question, Dean," he says, a tad bitchily, and Dean makes a mental note to work harder on keeping him away from Ruby in the future. He's picking up her bad habits, particularly her many _how are you such an idiot?_ facial expressions.

"Oh sure, a simple question," Dean mutters. "That is not a simple fucking question, Sam! Why would you even ask that?"

"Well…you were kinda being weird about the pronouns."

"Dammit," Dean curses quietly. Trust Sam of all people to notice his _grammar. _He tries to breathe. "Fine. Okay. Cas…Castiel…is Anna's younger brother. Older than you, but younger than me…huh. Come to think of it, I never asked him how old he actually is."

"Don't change the subject," Sam says, annoyingly prim. "So, you got kissing-distance close to a guy named Cas. Did you guys…you know…" He makes a gesture with his hands that has Dean nearly running off the road again.

"God dammit, Sam! Who taught you shit like that?"

Sam raises an eyebrow at him as if to say, _really?_ Dean swears to himself that he will never joke about sex in front of his little brother again, ever.

"Well stop acting like me, it's bad for you," he snaps. "And anyway, no. Cas and me…we're not…we _don't_. We kissed a little bit," he admits sheepishly. "But that was it. I just met the guy at the start of the summer, for Christ's sake!"

"Since when does it take you a whole summer to hook up with someone?" Sam asks. It's not mocking or judgmental, just innocently curious. Dean grudgingly has to admit that it's a valid question. He wasn't exactly an angel in high school, and he'd had his share of close encounters of the naked, sweaty kind. No kids, thank God and Durex. But yeah, he's pretty much the opposite of a prude, and his brother is apparently even nosier than he gave him credit for.

And once again, that's a damn good question: why didn't he and Cas get anywhere? Now that he thinks about it, they didn't even _try_. Not for lack of wanting, either, at least on Dean's part…but they never dwelt on it, never even talked about it. He was content to just take it slow, lay in the grass with Cas's head on his shoulder, trading leisurely kisses in the sunshine.

It's never occurred to Dean before just how different he was with Cas and the rest of the Miltons, but that right there? That's not even _him_. That's some other guy, someone on a level of young and innocent that Dean's not sure he's ever even been to.

They finish the drive home in silence, and when they get there Dean still has yet to answer Sam's question, because he's still too busy mulling it over in his own head.

* * *

_Dear Cas,_

_You know what's funny? All that time I was visiting you I felt like a totally different person. Like somebody better than Dean Winchester. I dunno if you ever really met Dean Winchester. He's kind of a bastard and I don't know if you'd like him. I think you liked me alright, though._

_Remember how I called you magic? I really think you are. You changed me while we were together. It's like you grabbed hold of me and pulled me out of a pit, and I didn't even know how deep it was until I fell back in._

_I hope you're doing okay. You're probably too busy with school to write letters. I know Sammy has hours of homework, and you're a year ahead of him so you probably have even more. If you get a chance, though, I really would like to hear from you. I just want to know how you are. Sometimes I think you forgot about me, and then I think about the look you'd give me if you were here, just for thinking something that stupid. I know you didn't forget me. I wish sometimes you'd tell me so yourself, all the same._

_Are the bees still around this far into winter? I don't know. If they are, have some honey for me, okay?_

_Dean_

* * *

Time passes in the Winchester household, and the more of it they live through the more tired Dean feels. Whatever calm and centered feeling Dean brought back with him to Kansas is soon stripped away by the day-to-day grind of taking care of his father and brother. He gets Sammy to school, goes to work—he works for Bobby, helps him strip old cars of their usable parts and fix things up from time to time—comes home, keeps the house, cooks dinner, helps Sammy with his homework as much as he can. The kid pretty much surpassed him in ninth grade, but he still tries. He makes sure they stay afloat, even though John once again takes a turn for the worse.

What breaks Dean's heart the most in watching his father is knowing that John really, truly tries. He tries to be a good dad. He tries to be present and reliable. He tries harder than Dean's ever seen anyone try, to climb out of the bottle and stay out, to make his kids proud and bury his grief down deep. But Dean guesses there are some things you just don't get over, and John has never gotten over losing his wife.

By the time Sammy's starting his senior year of high school, John has climbed so far back in that Dean doesn't think he'll ever crawl out again. He's sick, too, sweaty and perpetually tired. His skin takes on a yellow undertone that makes Dean feel nauseous with worry to look at, but John won't let him call a doctor.

Anna didn't come back to visit Ruby the summer after Michael died, or the next one either. Dean guesses it's just as well. He's not sure he could resist begging her to let him go back for a visit if he saw her, and Dean has bills to pay and a kid to take care of. With his dad getting worse and worse he just can't justify running off to Alabama for months and leaving Sammy alone. What if his dad passed out, or accidentally set the house on fire, or something worse? He can't leave his brother alone to face that, so he puts the woods of Alabama and the buzzing of bees out of his mind.

He doesn't forget Castiel, though. He still writes to him at least once a week. He never gets a letter back, and that hurts, but Castiel never writes asking him to stop, either, so he doesn't. He's a little less honest than he used to be, maybe. He doesn't tell Cas about his dad's drinking getting worse or their money problems, or about how Dean's own future is starting to feel dark, empty, and whiskey-flavored. He fills his letters with funny stories about Sammy, and the antics of Jo and Ellen: mom-and-daughter soap opera extraordinaire. He talks about his work at the salvage yard, the interesting old husks of cars he deals with and the gruff affection with which Bobby treats him and his brother. He asks Cas questions about his own life that he knows will never be answered.

It's been two years. Dean doesn't expect a reply anymore, but he hasn't been able to stop himself from writing the letters. He feels like an idiot every time he drops another letter into the mailbox with the last one hundred still unanswered, but he hasn't been able to convince himself to stop sending them, either.

* * *

_Dear Cas,_

_You're kind of a bastard for not writing me back, but I guess I understand. I'm not mad, not really, and I think I'd forgive you in half a second if you ever did write just one letter back to me. Hell, you probably don't even read these anymore, if you ever did. Doesn't matter. I like to think maybe you do, and maybe you have a really good reason for never replying. Maybe you just don't have anything to say?_

_I'm working on a new project. Bobby had this pile of scrap metal that my dad wrecked way back when just rotting in his salvage yard. He told me I could have it back if I wanted. I'm going to fix her up like new. Maybe when she's done I'll drive her down to Alabama. Will you answer the door if I knock on it?_

_Dean_

* * *

It's the middle of November. The grass is still poison-green and the days are still bright, but the leaves are starting to turn and the nights get cold. Dean's taken to wearing a jacket to work for the first half of the day, until he warms up enough with sunlight and exertion to shed the extra layer. He's absorbed in his favorite project, and Bobby seems content to leave him to it, however unprofitable he thinks it will be.

It's a black 1967 Chevrolet Impala, or what's left of one. It used to belong to his dad, but John wrecked it good a few years back and it's been sitting in Bobby's salvage yard ever since, just waiting to be fixed. The passenger side is smashed in and the paint's flaking off all over. The interior upholstery is ripped to hell and faded from exposure and the glass is broken in every single window, but Dean's persevered. And after months of working on her little by little whenever he can spare the time and scavenge the parts, he's almost got her back into prime running condition. The chassis is still dented and the interior is still shot to hell, but the windows have been replaced and the engine actually ran the one time he tested it. He figures he'll have it finished by Christmas, and he can surprise his dad. He knows John loved that old car. He bought it when he and Mary first got married.

He finishes up around five and calls to Bobby that he's heading home. Sam is supposed to be working on a school project at the library until seven, and Dean wants to shower and get supper started before he goes to pick him up. He takes the short way home on foot, reveling in the cold breeze that dries the sweat on his skin as he goes, eyes squinted against the dust and grit that eddy up from the unpaved road.

The house's windows look dark from the driveway, and Dean feels a familiar sinking in his stomach. John didn't get up and go to work today; if he had the porch light would be on, because he always left it on for Dean when it started getting dark early on the days he went to work. Dean sighs, tamps down on his frustration, breathes through the customary surge of rage that his dad can't be the goddamn adult for once, and walks heavily up the porch steps and into the house, hanging up his jacket on the hook by the door.

"Dad?" He calls. "I'm home." He gets no answer, and figures John is probably sleeping. He heads straight upstairs to get a hot shower, anxious to be rid of all the grime from the day's work. In the upstairs hallway, he stops.

There's a shadow on the floor at the end of the hallway, something large curled up on the ground in front of the bathroom door. Dean reaches out a hand and flips on the light.

It's John.

Dean rushes to his father's side, calling him repeatedly and shaking his shoulder, attempting to rouse him. He jerks his hand back quickly though, and a haze of disbelief and dread settles over him. His dad is cold and stiff, laying on his side with a hand outstretched, as if reaching for help. Dean registers for the first time that his dark eyes are open and glassy. His stomach lurches and it's all he can do not to throw up then and there.

Dean wants to leave, go back to work and pretend this isn't happening. He wants to curl up in bed and pull the covers over his head and tell himself it isn't true. He wants to rewind the last decade of his life and pour out every bottle of alcohol his dad brings into the house, even if it means getting yelled at, even if John will just go out and buy more.

He wants his dad, _needs_ his dad, like he hasn't needed him since he was a scared little kid who just lost his mother. But his dad is cold, and empty-eyed, and not there, and Dean almost pukes again when he realizes that it's not that different from what he was like when he was alive.

_When he was alive._

Dean jumps up and staggers back down the hallway, down the stairs and out the front door. When his foot hits the dirt of the driveway he starts running full-tilt, so fast he's almost falling over himself, back in the direction of Bobby's, because he's a kid who doesn't know how to deal with this but he does know where to go for help. Bobby will know what to do, he has to know, because Dean can't handle this one. He can pay the bills and clean the house and take care of Sammy, but he can't fix a dead father.

The thought of Sammy just makes him run faster. He doesn't want—can't let—Sammy get home and see their dad like that.

* * *

_Dear Cas,_

_I didn't really understand how you felt before. I lost my mom a long time ago. I miss her like crazy, but I don't really remember how much that hurt anymore. But now my dad's gone too. Stupid bastard drunk himself to death. I found him on the floor upstairs. I'm glad it was me and not Sammy._

_I don't really know what I'm gonna do, or where I'll be writing from when I send you another letter. Sammy's got half a year of school to finish, and I'm not gonna let them ship him off to some foster home, change his school and mess up his grades. He's putting in his college applications and I don't want anything to mess that up for him, he's worked hard and he deserves it._

_We're gonna sell the house. Might finish off the bills and help pay for Sam's college a little bit, if we're lucky. Anyway, you probably don't even read these anymore. I just wanted to let you know that I still think about you, every damn day. I still miss you. That summer was the best one I ever had, and it's the last really happy memory I have in my head. I know how it ended and that it's fucked up I can still be happy when I think about it, but I am. If it's the last good memory I have for the rest of my life it'll still be enough. More than most people get._

_Dean_

* * *

Castiel stares down at the letter, blinking furiously to stop the stinging of tears that threaten to fall and smudge the page. He reads it one more time, lingering on the final passage, before folding it up and putting it back into its envelope. He leans over the edge of his bed and reaches his hand as far as it will go, scrabbling at the edges of something until he has a good grip and can pull it out.

It's a nondescript wooden box, unfinished and unpainted, pale wood and knobby in places, with a simple bronze latch and hinges that creak slightly when he opens the lid. Inside are hundreds of envelopes laid out in layer after layer, some of them slightly yellowed and some of them crisp and new, each one bearing his name and address in a neat, plain hand that's all sharp angles and straight lines. He runs a finger over his name, _Castiel_, in that beloved handwriting, imagines Dean sitting at a desk or a table somewhere, writing it out carefully before licking the envelope closed and pressing a stamp in the upper right corner.

He places the latest letter carefully on top and closes the lid, climbs out of bed and onto his knees to slide it back into place, before standing up and brushing off his jeans and just staring into space for a long moment.

When Castiel finally moves, he snaps to life like a wind-up doll let loose, frantic energy propelling him around his room, downstairs, and out the front door faster than anyone can ask him what he's doing. No one really tries to stop him, anyway. It's been years since anyone in the Milton household could do anything about Castiel.

He reaches the edge of the woods and doesn't stop, setting off in the direction of town with determination. It's a long walk for most people, but it doesn't bother him in the slightest. He's used to running around these woods all the time.

When he gets to the town he still doesn't stop. He goes straight to the train station.

* * *

After he finally convinces a very suspicious woman at the post office to give him directions to the Winchester place, Castiel still has a devil of a time finding it. It's on the outskirts of town, back in the woods at the end of a twisting labyrinth of dirt roads that ought to be familiar enough to an Alabama boy, but are somehow different from what he's used to and confound him nonetheless. He's beginning to suspect that the woman gave him bad directions when he finally manages to come across a dilapidated little place called Singer Salvage, and decides to stop for help.

He parks his borrowed car—he fully intends to return it to its owner when he's finished—by the gate and approaches the front door cautiously, wondering if he should knock there or search for an office for the salvage yard instead. Before he makes up his mind, the door opens and he's faced with a grouchy-looking man in his mid-fifties, graying hair hidden under a ball cap and sharp eyes assessing Castiel from above a glass of some amber-colored liquid that probably isn't sweet tea.

"Can I help you?" He asks, sounding as unhelpful as it is possible to sound. Castiel attempts to smile at him, but the man just glares harder.

"I'm a little lost," Castiel says, "I'm looking for the Winchester place."

If possible, the man immediately becomes even less welcoming.

"The Winchesters don't need to be bothered right now, kid. They've got enough on their plate. Anyway Sam's at school and Dean's at work. Now just get on your way."

"Please, sir," Castiel persists, insinuating himself slightly into the doorway before the man can go back inside and close it in his face. "I really need to talk to Dean. I'm a friend of his."

"You ain't any friend of his I ever met," the man retorts, but something in Castiel's desperate face must convince him Castiel is at least genuine, because he softens a little, shoulders relaxing and brow unfurrowing slightly. "Look, kid. Sam and Dean have had a rough couple of weeks. They ain't takin' visitors right now. Maybe you should come on back some other time."

"He'll take me," Castiel says, not smug or over-confident but sure, as if stating a fact. The man examines him for a moment more, and finally turns away, grumbling something about bratty entitled kids.

"Come on in," he calls over his shoulder as he retreats back into the dark interior of the house. "Dean's out back. Guess I'll let him decide if he wants to bother with you or not. Who should I tell him is callin'?"

Castiel steps over the threshold and lingers in the entryway, peering into the darkness and feeling his pulse quicken at the thought of seeing Dean again.

"Tell him…" Cas stops and considers, before a slow smile creeps across his face. "Tell him the Bee Charmer from Alabama's here to see him."

* * *

**Author's Note:** I originally meant to post two new chapters tonight. Partly because it seemed mean to leave it on an angsty chapter when I knew we'd all be horrible emotional wrecks after the finale. I was right. Unfortunately, it's been a really busy week at work and I've pretty much crashed every day when I got home, so I didn't have quite enough time to finish the next chapter. I do have some of it written, though! I'm hoping to post a chapter a week throughout the summer. So far, I'm having a lot of fun with this! Maybe it'll keep me from descending into Hellatus insanity too quickly? Here's hoping.

And a great big shout-out of thanks and praise to ohamandalynn, without whom this chapter would be half what it was. Literally. One of her big suggestions was that I put in more of Dean's letters to Cas.


	4. Chapter 3: Stop Breakin' Down

_Alabama, two years ago_

Castiel isn't sure why he opened up his life to Dean Winchester the way he has. He thinks back to that day, when he came home after one of his protracted absences—Hester calls it gallivanting—to find a strange boy in his bed. He remembers the way Dean looked while he slept, utterly peaceful and so comfortable, like he belonged there. He remembers the way he froze like a deer in headlights when those faded leaf-green eyes fixed on him for the first time, and how something in him pulled toward Dean like he was gravity itself.

It made no sense then and even less now, now that he knows Dean and knows how little they have in common. They don't like the same things or think the same way, and yet somehow their differences never bring them into conflict. They like and think their own things together almost effortlessly. Dean never seems to tire of following Cas into whatever crazy new thing he wants to do that day, and Cas listens with real interest to the way Dean sees the world. Cas has let Dean into every secret place, every special thing that used to be only his. And each time, Dean just _fits_ like there was a space waiting for him.

Castiel pointedly doesn't think about the fact that Dean will have to leave eventually. It isn't a problem yet, and he's not going to make it a problem until he has to.

Though honestly, he has no idea how he's going to live without this boy filling up all the vacant spaces in his life.

They're curled up in the shade under the bridge, taking refuge from the heat in the cool, wet slope of earth around the support beams. Dean's head is pillowed in Cas's lap and his eyes are closed, face serene. The occasional breeze stirs his sun-streaked hair, which has grown out enough for Castiel to bury the tips of his fingers in it a little.

"You know something?" Dean asks out of nowhere. He does this sometimes, just starts spilling his secrets without preamble.

"I know a lot of somethings," Castiel answers. It's become almost a ritual between them.

"'Course you do," Dean says. "But did you know sometimes I'm mad at her? My mom, I mean."

"Mad at her?" Castiel doesn't understand.

"Yeah," Dean says softly. "I hate it. I don't wanna feel that way. But sometimes I'm mad at her for dying. I know she couldn't help it. She didn't _want _to die. But she did, and then my dad went off his rocker from missin' her. And there was nobody to take care of Sammy but me. I'm mad at her for leaving us like that, even if I know she didn't mean to and wouldn't've done it if she had a choice."

Castiel is quiet for several moments, mulling these things over before he speaks.

"You know…it never occurred to me to be angry with my mother. Even though sometimes I think she did have a choice. She could have pulled it together and lived for us. She just didn't try." The admission burns his throat on the way out. He doesn't like to think of his mother that way, but it's true. Mary Winchester was pulled away from her family by tragedy, and she left a broken man behind who couldn't—or wouldn't—take care of his family. Castiel has stopped wondering what happened to his father, but his mother…in a way, she did what Dean's dad did. She just did it more completely.

Dean turns in his lap, wrapping arms around Cas' waist and burying his face in his stomach.

"I'm sorry, Cas," he mumbles. Castiel smiles down at him, the momentary pain of his admission already forgotten in the warmth of Dean's embrace.

"Don't be," he says. "I've had plenty of time to mourn my mother."

"Yeah," Dean says, still muffled by Castiel's shirt. "Yeah, I guess I have too." He settles back into his former position, eyes still closed. There's an answering grin on his face that belies his next words, makes them seem somehow distant and inconsequential…as if the two of them exist somewhere that can't be touched by things that hurt.

"I think it's the worst thing a person can do," he says. "Leave, I mean. Even if you can't help it. If you really love 'em you keep 'em close, or you find a way back. I'd do just about anything to keep from leaving the people I love."

* * *

_Kansas, present day_

Bobby pauses on his back porch, watching Dean work on his pet project with a furious kind of concentration that breaks Bobby's heart. He'd known the kid was fixing that old car up for his dad, and now John would never see it. If the man were still alive, Bobby would kill him for leaving his kids in this state.

He's never approved of the way John was with his kids. Bobby understands, better than most, what it's like to lose the people you love and never be able to move on. He ought to be the last person to throw stones when it comes to being a bitter old drunk…something John was never hesitant to remind him of. But Bobby had lost the only person he gave a damn about, and John still had two kids who _needed_ him to give a damn, and stay sober. Or at least sober enough to function and not die of a pickled liver before he turned fifty. Bobby shakes his head.

"Dean," he calls out. "There's some idjit kid here to see ya."

Dean extracts himself from the interior of the Impala and wipes a hand across his brow, succeeding only in adding a gray smudge to the sweat.

"Yeah? A kid? Some friend a Sammy's from school?"

"Nah," Bobby says, evasive for reasons he doesn't understand. "Just some kid. Says you know him. Called himself 'the bee charmer from Alabama.'"

Dean goes stone still, his face falling from its squinty look of confusion to utter blankness in a split second. He turns back to the Impala and slides in, returning to his task as if they hadn't said a word to each other. Bobby starts to turn away, to go tell the kid to get lost, but Dean's voice stops him.

"Send 'im on back, Bobby." He sounds a little choked, and Bobby wonders who in the hell this kid is, to affect Dean like that after the couple of weeks he's already had. He almost doesn't do it; he almost marches back inside and orders the kid to get off his property before he foregoes calling the police for his trusty shotgun. Bobby's not above a little drama, not when it comes to protecting the people he cares about when they're already hurting. Of course, that plan goes up in smoke when he turns to see the damn kid's followed him. He's already stepping out the back door, and there's no way Bobby can get him out of here without making a scene in front of Dean. He glowers at the kid as he walks away, intending to give them some privacy, whatever his misgivings.

"I'll be right inside," he calls, loud enough for Dean to catch it. He thinks he hears a noncommittal grunt from the general direction of the Impala, but he can't be sure. He goes inside and proceeds to pointedly not watch through the curtains like an old mother hen.

Castiel swallows hard and tries to be quiet as he walks across the dusty salvage yard to the spot where the Impala sits. Dean had written him about it when he first started, and it looks as though he's almost finished now. It's beautiful, glossy black on the outside and gray leather on the inside. That's what Dean's working on now, replacing the damaged upholstery. He's contorted over the driver's seat in the strangest way, on his stomach with his legs in the air and his head hidden in the shadows underneath the dashboard, hands busy with something Castiel can't see.

He feels like the world's biggest ass, but he can't help noticing how…_different _Dean's body is. In two years he's filled out a bit, lost that lithe, boyish quality his limbs still had at nineteen. Everything once soft about him seems to have turned to hard lines, and Castiel is mesmerized by the way his back muscles bunch and shift as he works. He feels overheated and a little parched, all of a sudden, and it doesn't help his nerves at all.

"Hello, Dean," he says softly, unsure of his welcome. It had all seemed simple up till now. He would go to Kansas and find Dean, he would help him with Sam and be there for him while he mourned his father, and…then what? Castiel hadn't thought that far ahead, and now he feels stupid with the man he ignored for two years actually in front of him. He wishes he could just magic himself back home or, better yet, back those two years.

"Hey," Dean finally grunts, pulling himself upright and out of the car in one smooth motion that serves the dual purpose of being far too impressive and putting a car between himself and Castiel. They look at each other over the shiny black top, one long stare that seems to crackle with awkward energy until Castiel is finally forced to look away.

"I'm…I'm sorry," he blurts out. "About your father, I mean." He wishes he could sink into the dust and disappear.

Dean rounds the car with slow, almost cautious footsteps, gradually easing himself into Castiel's space until they're standing almost toe to toe. Castiel can feel the heat radiating off him, a sharp contrast to the chilly November air. That presence draws his eyes like a magnet, until it's more painful to not look, and he's forced to finally meet Dean's eyes again.

He expects to see anger and is surprised to be met with nothing but raw, naked hurt. Dean's looking at him like he's lost, and Castiel can almost hear his own heart splintering at the sight.

"You get my letters?" Dean asks. He doesn't ask why Cas never wrote back.

"I did." Cas doesn't offer an explanation.

"Did you read any of them?"

"I read them all." Over and over and over again, but he doesn't elaborate. Dean takes a deep breath.

"Okay."

They just stand there, staring, for longer than should be comfortable. Cas is aching to reach out and pull Dean into a hug, but he feels like he's been giving up that right every single time he failed to answer another of Dean's letters. Dean wants to pull Cas forward and prove to himself that this isn't a hallucination brought on by stress and grief, but he's very aware of those two years of silence…and slightly aware that Bobby's watching from the kitchen window.

But then Dean's thoughts turn reckless. Hell, he's got a dead father, a kid brother to finish raising, bills he's completely ill-equipped to pay, no home once they sell the house, and no future. Everything else in his life has gone to absolute shit, why not give Bobby the chance to hop the same train? Cas is here, standing in front of him with those blue eyes that are so familiar and a defeated slouch to his shoulders that is brand-new and that Dean absolutely hates. So what if he didn't write him for two goddamn awful years? He's here _now._

"Aw, hell," Dean bites out. "C'mere, Cas."

He steps forward and reaches out, pulling Castiel to him in a great bear of a hug, wrapping both arms around his back and clutching at his shoulders with dirty hands, not even caring that he's getting it all over Cas's jacket. Cas stands stock still in the embrace for a moment, before pulling himself together and wrapping both arms around Dean's middle, ruining any plea for platonic they could have made when he buries his face in Dean's neck and takes a deep breath like he's trying to pull Dean into his lungs and keep him there.

"God, I missed you," Dean grumbles into his hair, tightening his arms a little more and squeezing his eyes shut against the fact that he's shaking. He feels wrung out, stretched thin, rode hard and put up wet. He feels like Castiel's arms are the only thing keeping him from flying apart entirely, and he holds on to that anchor for dear life.

Castiel doesn't tell Dean how much he missed him, too. He just returns the embrace and breathes against Dean's neck, taking in the smells of sweat and new leather, absorbing the tiny tremors of pain and expelling a comforting brush of warm air in their stead.

Bobby watches from the kitchen window, more than a little confused but mostly just relieved. Dean hasn't talked to anyone, not even Sam, as far as Bobby knows. He's been bottling it up inside, blaming himself and being mad at the world, trying to deal with it all alone. It scares Bobby sometimes, just how much that boy is like his father.

_But John never had that,_ Bobby thinks as he takes in the weird kid hugging Dean for all he's worth as Dean slowly starts to come apart at the seams. After Mary, John never found someone he could be like that with again.

He starts to hope that Dean might be okay.

* * *

Sam can see the front porch light through the trees as soon as he gets off the bus. It makes him feel a little bit annoyed but mostly just grateful, the way Dean's taken to being the dad, now that theirs is…well. _But then again, Dean's been doing dad's job since before I was old enough to crawl. _It always makes him feel sad and angry, heartsick and loved and proud all at once, to think of all the things his older brother has done for him, all of the responsibility he's taken on over the years just to make sure Sam has everything he needs. It strikes him, not for the first or the last time, that he's never thought of Dean as another kid. He wonders when's the last time Dean felt like anything other than a miniature adult.

He takes his time walking up the driveway, not in any hurry to be back in that house. He's pretty sure the thought of home isn't supposed to put a pit of dread in his stomach, but that's the only feeling he has ever been able to associate with the place. Home to Sam is the never-ending sensation of walking on eggshells and waiting for the other shoe to drop. Knowing that when it does, Dean is always the one who takes the brunt of it just made him feel worse, not better. If a part of him—a part he tries not to look too hard at—had guiltily hoped that his father's death would clear the oppressive air in the Winchester home, he had been sorely disappointed. The air is sore as well as heavy now, Dean's worry and stress and the crushing weight of his grief purpling it like a livid bruise. Sam's trying to feel what Dean feels, what any good son would feel. He wants to miss his father and he hates himself for not being able to, but the fact is that the man terrified him.

Sam's so lost in his own thoughts that he doesn't immediately register the two figures occupying the swing on the front porch. He almost walks right past them, but a flash of blue catches his eye and causes him to turn.

A pair of bright, steady eyes stares at him from a young, tanned face topped with a messy shock of black hair. The guy doesn't look much older than Sam, maybe Dean's age at the most. He's sitting there on the swing with Dean's head on his shoulder, carding his fingers absentmindedly through Dean's hair. It looks as though Dean cried himself to sleep; there are tear tracks still drying on his face. Sam feels a sudden pang in his chest, because _there's the kid_. The boy Dean could have been, able to cry when he hurts and unworried enough to fall asleep before Sam gets home from school. There are no shadows around his eyes, there's no clenching in his jaw. He barely even looks like Dean, and so Sam figures this guy must be Castiel.

Of course, that just brings up a whole set of questions, like where the hell has he been all this time? Dean never talks about it, but Sam knows he's kept writing his letters and sending them every week. He also knows that Dean never gets any mail. Their phone gets cut off every other month and sometimes stays off for several in a row, depending on how often John remembers—_remembered,_ Sam corrects himself—to pay the bill, but in the months it's been on the only callers have been Bobby, Ellen, and Sam's friends from school. Somehow he doesn't think that's just an unfortunate coincidence.

And the worst part is, Dean thinks he's never noticed. Sam is the kid brother, his only job is to be happy and normal and get good grades. He knows that, and so he tries to do what Dean wants, pretend he's as well-adjusted as Dean hopes he is in spite of their fucked up home life. The last thing Sam would ever want is for Dean to feel like all his sacrifices were in vain, but the truth? Sam doesn't look at the truth too often because it's an ugly, dangerous thing that he knows Dean wants to keep hidden, but they're a mess. He estimates they're about a month from living out of one of the cars in Bobby's salvage yard, they barely keep the lights on, and Sam's pretty sure most of their groceries make it out of the store tucked inside Dean's jacket. Dean doesn't sleep more than four hours a night at the best of times. He feels stuck at home and guilty for wanting to leave, and he's suffocating under the weight of all the things he doesn't talk to Sam about. Their life is held together with duct tape and spit and—Sam suspects but is terrified of confirming—a shot or two of Jack in Dean's coffee every morning. It's gotten exponentially worse in the last week, but that was their life _before _John died on them.

He's not generally an angry person, but Sam really wants to _hate _Castiel right in this moment. He wants to give him a dressing down worthy of Bobby in stand-in daddy mode, for making Dean happy and taking that away and then showing up out of nowhere just when Dean needs him most. There's no gratitude for the good timing, only dread at the thought of what Dean will look like if Castiel just disappears from his life again.

Looking at them together, though, Sam can't bring himself to say a word. The way Dean's totally relaxed against Castiel's side, and the way Castiel has stopped stroking through Dean's hair to cradle his head in one hand…it's too intimate for him to interrupt, and anyway it's probably the most sleep Dean's gotten since John died.

Sam gives Castiel a hard look and a curt nod before continuing into the house, resolving to find a way to speak to him later, and alone.

* * *

Dean wakes to a hand already massaging the crick out of his neck, and shifts himself just enough to blink sleepily up at Castiel's face. It's gone from slightly chilly to really cold, the sun having long gone down and the wind picked up. There's a blanket thrown over his shoulders, but Dean still shivers slightly as he sits up and looks around, feeling sluggish and confused.

"Cas? What time is it?" He mumbles. Castiel ceases his ministrations to Dean's neck and lets his hand fall to Dean's back instead. The constant contact is strange, but nice. Dean leans into it automatically.

"It's past nine," Cas says. "Your brother, or so I'm assuming, came home a few hours ago. He's inside."

"Shit," Dean exclaims. He doesn't have anything to make Sammy for dinner, and he still needs a shower. And suddenly, he is reluctant to let Cas inside the house. He knows Cas probably won't care, but Dean can't help but compare this dingy, ill-kept little place with the sprawling cheerfulness of the Milton house.

It's not like the guy has somewhere else to be, though, so Dean sucks it up and stands, stretching and then turning to loop his arm around Cas's shoulders. He can't seem to stop touching him, like he's afraid Cas will just fly away if Dean doesn't have hands on him at all times. Cas fits under his arm like he belongs there, and allows himself to be led through the front door and into the tiny living room.

"Sit a spell," Dean says, directing Cas toward the couch. "I'm gonna go see about Sammy real quick."

Dean bounds up the stairs, stopping at Sam's door and pointedly not looking beyond it, to the darkened hallway where the shadow of his father still seems to hover. He knocks softly, not wanting to wake Sam if the kid is already asleep.

"S'open," comes Sam's muffled voice. Dean opens the door and sticks his head in. Sam is sprawled across his bed, face down in what appears to be a calculus textbook. It looks as though he'd been on the verge of falling asleep in the midst of his homework, and Dean smiles fondly.

"Hey Sammy," he says gently. "You hungry?"

"Mmph? Nah," Sam mumbles. "Castiel still here?"

Dean doesn't even wonder how Sam knows the guy downstairs is Cas; his little brother is the smartest cookie in the box, and the only thing he knows better than books is Dean.

"Yeah, he's here. Think he hopped a bus down here without much of a plan. Probably gonna put him up on the couch."

Sam turns over and fixes Dean with a stare that's far too pointed for someone who's barely awake.

"On the couch. Really?"

"Yes," Dean says firmly. "The couch."

Sam shrugs. "Kay. I'm goin' back to sleep."

Dean chuckles. "You do that, Sammy. Seeya in the morning."

Sam grunts, already turning his attention to shoving his books out of the way and reaching for his pillow. Dean shakes his head and shuts the door as quietly as possible before tiptoeing back down the stairs.

"Sammy's out," he announces. "Poor kid studies himself half to death. He's gonna be a lawyer or a doctor, or the nation's youngest fuckin' president." The pride in his voice is a warm and glowing thing, and Castiel smiles at him from his place on the couch.

"He sounds impressive," Cas says. Dean snorts.

"Impressive, yeah. Grumpy little shit when he's tired, though." The adoring tone completely belies his words, and Castiel's heart gives a little stutter of half-fear, half-longing. Dean always spoke of his younger brother with pride, but the sheer depth of it startles him now. He thinks of the look Sam gave him on the porch earlier, the fierce protectiveness laced with warning. His love for his own brothers and sisters is so spread out, like a net that keeps them all together and yet allows them room to move and breathe. What he senses between Dean and Sam is more concentrated, like a length of iron chain. The very thought of a love like that makes him feel as if someone's dropped something heavy on his chest.

Dean collapses on the couch with a sigh. When Castiel opens his arms, Dean slides into them without hesitation, face nuzzling into the space below Cas' ear. It ought to feel strange to touch each other so casually after such a long absence, but it almost feels like no absence ever existed. It warms and freezes Castiel in equal measure, but he tries to push his conflicted emotions to the side in favor of relishing the moment. Dean is here, and Dean doesn't hate him, and Dean needs him. Everything else should be able to wait.

* * *

It's still dark when Sam comes downstairs. He doesn't have to be at school until eight, but he fell asleep pretty early and by five he was wide awake and itching to be out of bed. He tiptoes past Dean's room, trying not to wake him; Dean usually doesn't get up until he absolutely has to, and he grouses if Sam wakes him before.

When he gets downstairs Sam realizes he needn't have bothered. Dean, true to his word, put Castiel up on the couch. Of course, Dean didn't mention that he would be curling up _with _Castiel, but Sam has a feeling he didn't plan it that way, either. He's still in the clothes he was wearing when Sam got home the night before, curled against one of the armrests with an arm slung around the other man's shoulders. It looks uncomfortable, and Sam bets Dean will be one cranky motherfucker when he wakes up.

Castiel is already awake, and watching Dean sleep. Sam wants to think that's creepy, but the expression on Castiel's face makes it once again impossible to be petulant. Sam wonders how Dean ever managed a summer with a guy whose very presence suppresses all but the fluffiest and most generous of emotions.

"Good morning, Sam," Castiel says without turning away from Dean's face, and okay, Sam is officially done with the generosity because that is _creepy_. He grunts a quiet acknowledgment, not wanting to wake a Dean who slept on the couch any more than he wanted to wake one who slept comfortably stretched out in a bed. He shuffles through the living room and into the kitchen, heading straight for the coffee pot. He's just got the coffee brewing when he hears a sound and turns to find Castiel has followed him. Dean is nowhere in sight, and Sam wonders how in the world Castiel managed to get up without waking him.

Sam looks at Castiel expectantly, waiting for him to say something. That steady gaze falters, sliding to the side and down, and Castiel actually fidgets a bit. Sam didn't take him for the fidgeting type.

"I got the impression yesterday that you wanted to speak to me," he says quietly. He sounds nervous. Sam really tries not to get any satisfaction from that.

"Yeah well…I gotta get ready for school, so." He turns back toward the coffee, feeling childish but totally unprepared to have this conversation.

"You're angry with me." Castiel states it like a fact, and for some reason that irritates Sam.

"I don't even know you," he snaps, without turning around.

"You know that I was Dean's friend, and I suspect you know that I didn't keep in touch."

Sam whirls around.

"Yeah, I noticed," he grits out. "Would it've killed you to pick up the phone? Or answer one of his letters? You know he sent you one every week, right? He swings by the post office on the way home after he picks me up from debate team, every Thursday. He never brings anything back with him."

Sam feels all the anger from yesterday returning, and then some. He's clenching the countertop behind him with both hands and practically hissing at Castiel across the kitchen, trying to keep his volume down even while his temper turns his voice into something harsh and ugly. Castiel's face is stoic, like he's taking a well-deserved punishment. Sam is only too happy to keep doling it out.

"Dean never tells me anything. He never asks for anything or complains about _anything_. He had nobody to talk to except you, and you…you didn't even have the decency to tell him to fuck off. You just kept letting him wonder. Do you know what the last two years have been like for him?"

Castiel nods, a jerky half-aborted motion. "I'm beginning to have some idea," he says. His voice sounds tight and his eyes are two big, blue apologies. Sam feels his anger ebbing in spite of himself.

"Yeah, well…" He falters, releases his death grip on the counter. "It's probably twice as bad as you think it is, and he just…" Sam stops, swallows, takes a deep breath. "He can't take anything else going wrong, okay? He can't. So if you're gonna show up just to leave again…you should've stayed gone."

Castiel considers Sam carefully for a moment. It doesn't escape him, the way Sam talks about Dean as if his older brother is the only one grieving, the only one carrying their burdens. Very likely that's true, although Castiel doubts it's because Sam is unwilling or unwitting of their problems. Castiel remembers how Dean spoke of Sam when they were younger, and how he looked when he came downstairs after checking on him last night. He guesses that Dean devotes most of his time and energy to making sure Sam doesn't _have _any problems. He wonders how difficult it must be, to always have to be okay for your older brother just because he's trying so hard and you don't want him to be disappointed. It isn't something he's ever felt, but he imagines that if he had to choose, he'd choose to share the weight of all the rest before he'd willingly take that one on. Castiel likes Sam immensely, right then, just for being able to do that for Dean.

"I…" He starts, without knowing where he was going to go with that sentence. What can he do? Dean isn't the boy he remembers. He needs so much right now, and Castiel isn't sure he's the person to give him any of it. The last two years haven't exactly changed him for the better.

But he thinks of honey bees, of long, hot days and warm, close nights, and of a smile that reminded him of sunshine and new grass. He thinks of wary green eyes watching him over the top of an old car, and of the way Dean cries without making a sound, just an endless stream of tears soaking into the fabric of Castiel's shirt.

"I don't know what I can do, Sam," he says seriously, forcing himself to look the angry young man in the eye. "But please believe, I only want to help. I…I love him, too."

Sam stares him down for almost a full minute before he relents, visibly deflating and leaning against the counter, arms crossed over his chest and still looking defensive, but at least willing to give Castiel a chance.

"Okay, so…let's figure out what we can do."

* * *

**Author's Note:** First of all, thank you so much for all your wonderful reviews! And as always, thanks to my amazing beta, not only for all her great input but for the wicked fast turnaround time on this chapter. I sent it to her Tuesday night and she had it back to me by Wednesday morning! I also wanted to respond to a few guest reviews below, because you're all so awesome for leaving them and I would be remiss if I didn't respond.

**To the guest who needs a happy ending:** Believe me, honey, I do too. I'll do my best, yeah?

**To redrumredrum:** I thought it might. :P This story is expanded from a one shot, also called The Bee Charmer, that is basically a scene from Fried Green Tomatoes: The Destiel Remix. Certain scenes and plots from Fried Green Tomatoes will be adapted for this, but it won't be a direct correspondence.

**To Thunder:** I want to say I'm sorry you cried! But let's be honest...writers love to make people cry. It means we're doing something right. I'm glad you're enjoying it, and I can promise that there WILL be happiness here. There will also be more angst, but hopefully that will make the happiness even sweeter. I promise to keep writing it until it's finished.

**To the enthusiastic refresher:** I hope you didn't break the refresh button waiting and I hope you liked this chapter!

Thank you all so much for reading and for leaving your lovely reviews. 3


	5. Chapter 4: Digging A Ditch

_Note: A comment made by Sam in this chapter may be considered offensive and ableist to some readers. I considered taking it out, but in the end I decided it was an in-character thing for a teenage Sam to say._

* * *

About a week into Cas' visit it occurs to Dean that Cas has a life he put on hold at the drop of a hat. Cas hasn't said anything about classes or a job, but he has to have one or the other that he's missing so he can be here, holding onto Dean every night.

The couch pretense lasted all of a day. The third time Dean woke up that night and came downstairs for a glass of something that was clear and colorless but definitely wasn't water, Castiel followed him back up and climbed into his bed without a word. Dean didn't protest, and he didn't wake again until morning. Cas didn't say anything to Sam about the drinking as far as Dean knows, and he's grateful for that.

Now though, he's wondering what on earth those two are always whispering about, if not the best method of staging an intervention. Since Cas arrived Dean has caught them leaning over the kitchen table and talking in low, furtive voices more than once, foreheads almost touching. They jump apart and shut up when he walks in, and it's starting to get on his nerves.

He supposes he should just be grateful that Sam and Cas seem to get along. At first it seemed more like a truce than anything; Sam would hardly speak to Cas outside of their clandestine breakfast conversations, and seemed really tense and wary around him even then. Gradually though, Sam unclenched to the point that he's almost his playful, happy-go-lucky self again. Almost, because whenever he starts to laugh he stops and glances guiltily at Dean as if he's afraid it's too soon to be okay enough to laugh and yeah, go ahead and add that to the list of things Dean could do without right now.

He's been putting in extra hours at Bobby's and poring over John's—their—finances every night, trying to figure out a way to make ends meet long enough for Sam to graduate. He guesses after that he can go ahead with his idea to sell the house, but Sam's already going to graduate high school an orphan. Dean'll be damned if he's going to make him a homeless orphan to boot.

All in all, having Castiel there feels like a mixed blessing. As thankful as he is for every moment that Sam almost-laughs, a part of him is waiting for the other shoe to drop. He can't help but wonder when Cas will decide to leave and go two more years without talking to him. Which brings him right back to…

"Hey Cas…aren't you missing school or work or somethin'?" He's curled on his side with Cas behind him, one arm slung over his chest and legs tangled together under the sheets. Cas' hand is busy drawing small circles on the fabric of his t-shirt over his chest. When Dean speaks that hand pauses for a second before continuing, this time more slowly. It's as if Cas is too busy thinking to concentrate on whatever secrets he's tracing over Dean's heart. He doesn't speak for several long moments.

"I'm not missing school, Dean. Or work." He sounds oddly reluctant to admit this. Dean rolls over and props his head up on one hand, looking down at Cas with confusion written across his features.

"What…d'you mean you don't have a job? Or go to school? You can't be that much older than Sammy—"

"I dropped out of school some time ago."

"Dropped out?" Dean furrows his brow. "But Cas…why? You're a smart guy. You could be anything or go anywhere. Don't you wanna go to college?"

Castiel looks down at where his hand has gone still and flat against Dean's chest.

"I fail to see a reason for college, or for leaving. I take odd jobs in the area and I do what I please otherwise. I have my home, my family…almost everything I could ever need or want."

He doesn't put any special emphasis on the word _almost, _but his fingers twitch a little, and when he looks up Dean has to tell his brain sternly to stop jumping to conclusions as it scrambles to convince him that _he_ is the almost Cas is talking about. They haven't seen each other in two years; they're practically strangers and already in way too deep as it is. The person curled against Dean in his bed is not the person he left in Alabama when he was seventeen, and he knows he isn't the same guy either. But still…God, he _missed_ him, with a constant tension that had left him feeling watery with relief at its release the moment he'd reappeared.

"Cas," he says, voice husky. "I don't—"

But he doesn't know where he was going with that, if he even had a destination in mind. Silence falls between them, and it's thick with something that hasn't been there on any other night, however close they've held each other. Dean sees, and wonders how he hasn't noticed before, that Castiel's jawline is sharper than it was, his chest a little wider but his hips still so narrow, the skinny boy turned into a man of planes and sharp angles that beckon to him, enticing and sure to cut. Dean is keenly aware, in a way he hasn't been any other night, of the fact that they're practically glued together from chests to ankles. It hits him like a ton of bricks that they haven't even kissed since Cas came back.

It's suddenly too warm under the covers for sharing body heat like this, and he shifts away, trying to put some distance between them. It feels wrong, but so does the idea of pressing closer, leaning in and asking for the things he's just remembered he wants.

"Dean." Cas isn't liking this separation thing Dean's trying to achieve, and he definitely isn't cooperating with it. He follows Dean across the bed, face a picture of mingled annoyance and confusion. If there's a flash of worry there as well, Dean is too lost in his own moment of quiet panic to pick up on it.

"Cas, I can't," Dean offers by way of explanation, and Cas's face clears but he doesn't stop his relentless press into Dean's personal space.

"We won't," he says simply. "Just…I'd rather not create distance between us. I think there has been more than enough."

Dean relaxes, stops trying to escape. He opens up again, slowly, letting Castiel reassert himself and resume drawing random circles and signs on his chest. Dean watches him for a while, mesmerized and soothed by the repetitive motions until he finally drifts into sleep.

* * *

It's another week—and Dean tries not to think about or even believe the fact that his dad has been gone for nearly a month—when Cas and Sam finally decide to tell him what they've been whispering about behind his back. It's a good thing, too, because another day of it and he would've gone off on them. Instead he's blindsided by the question that Cas drops on him over breakfast like it's nothing, and he spends a good two minutes trying to stop choking on his own spit, because Cas wants him to _what?_

"You want me to _what?"_

"Move in with me," Cas says it again, so calmly, as if it's just logical. "You'll have a place to stay as long as you need it or want it. Sam is welcome as well. Gabe and Anna each have their own homes now, so you can each have a room to yourselves, if you want." His eyes are steady when he says it, as if he really is just offering them—offering _Dean—_a place to stay, and not…something else Dean totally isn't ready to even think about yet. "We would all be more than happy to have you."

"Cas...I can't." He sound reluctant to his own ears, but finds with some surprise that he's relieved to have a solid reason to say no. Once upon a time Dean would have leapt on what Cas is offering him, but now he can't even imagine it, let alone accept it. "I have stuff I have to take care of here. I have a job and a house to take care of and Sam's still got a few months left of school, I can't just drag him halfway across the country and mess up his grades like that, I—"

"Dean," Sam cuts in quietly. "You should go." Dean fixes a disbelieving look on his little brother. He's folded himself up in the chair until he looks oddly small and like he's trying to give himself a hug, but his jaw is set. Dean knows the look well enough: it's going to be an argument, and Sammy isn't going to make it easy by just giving in and doing what his big brother says. Of course not.

"Are you crazy?" He all but shouts. "I can't just leave you here alone! For _months, _Sammy. There's no way."

"No," Sam bites out. "I'm not crazy. And I'm not Sammy. Sammy's a chubby ten-year-old. I'm seventeen, for crying out loud."

"Sam—" Dean starts in warningly, but Sam cuts him off.

"Don't _Sam_ me," he snaps. The anger is gone as soon as it came though, and Sam unfolds himself to lean across the table toward Dean, hands out and eyes pleading. "Dean, please. Listen to me. This is a _good _idea, and it won't even be that long. I have enough credits to graduate at the end of this semester. That's not even two months! Ellen already said I can stay with her and Jo until then."

Dean looks from Sam's earnest face to Cas' hopeful one. He feels the panic in his chest tighten; he can't do this, and yet they've poked a gaping hole in his best reason not to. He knows Sam would be perfectly safe with Ellen and Jo, but the idea of being that far away from his brother, and with no reliable way to get in touch with him, for even a couple of months absolutely terrifies him.

"Sammy," he says softly. "I can't just go off and leave you here like that. I can't do it. What if something happens and you need me and I'm not there?"

"I'll have Bobby, and Ellen, and Ruby's mom and dad." Dean wrinkles his nose; that last part is the opposite of reassuring. Sam hurries on to cover his mistake. "You've taken care of me all my life. Since we were kids you've never done _anything _without me. You think I didn't notice all that? You took one summer vacation in seventeen years, and you still beat yourself up for it sometimes. You gotta stop it, Dean. I know I'm still a kid, but… I can take care of myself. And there are people who'll help. You don't have to do everything by yourself."

"Yeah, thanks for that Dr. Phil," Dean snarks. He's aiming for sarcasm, but the sudden lump in his throat ruins the effect. He swallows hard and tries again.

"Sam," he says hoarsely. "I can keep the house until you graduate, I _can_. I don't want this to mess you up."

"It's not gonna mess me up, I promise. Believe me, I'll actually sleep better at night knowing you're not holed up at Dad's desk freaking out over the bills."

Dean smiles weakly. He feels like a failure, and it stings. His little brother isn't supposed to be the one taking care of him. A part of him wants to give in, to just say yes and give Sam what he's asking for. There's just the matter of…

"Sam, can I have a minute alone with Cas?"

"Uh…sure," Sam says, looking suddenly a little wary and embarrassed. He scrambles out of his chair and heads upstairs. Dean waits until he hears Sam's bedroom door shut before he turns to Cas, who is watching him with a slight look of apprehension.

"Was this your idea?" Dean asks tiredly. The apprehension gives way to mild surprise.

"Actually, it was a team effort. Sam and I…came to an understanding."

"You 'came to an understanding?'" Dean mimicked sarcastically. "Come on, man…make it sound a _little _less like you're doing some kind of back door crime lord deal with my kid brother?"

"There's a joke in there somewhere," Cas deadpans, then hurries on at Dean's look. "We both wanted to help you and this is the solution we came up with."

He reaches out, placing two tentative fingers against the bare skin on the back of Dean's hand.

"I really hope you take it, Dean." He says softly. They stay rooted there for a moment, frozen with their eyes on each other and their bodies joined at this single point of contact. Dean is the first to lean back, with a defeated sigh.

"I gotta say, I'm impressed," he relents. "And I guess if Sam's that worried about the house and he wants to stay with Ellen and Jo until he graduates, he can. But…Cas." He turns away a little, scratching at a spot on the table for something to do other than look at Castiel. "Thanks for the offer, really, but…I can't just move my brother and me all the way to Alabama to live with your family like…some charity case or…stray dogs or somethin'."

"You would be our guests," Cas rejoins evenly. "And unlike the dog, you're both allowed to eat at the table." Dean chooses to ignore the sarcasm, huffing a quiet laugh. He knows he's beaten already, even if he isn't quite ready to admit it. No way Sam will let him bum around here without a house to live in. He's going to spend the next two months seeing Cas every single day, in the places he first saw him and loved him and then _lost _him…and Dean has no idea how he feels about that.

"Thanks," he says, glancing up at Cas with a small smile. Castiel takes it for the acquiescence it is and grins, tapping Dean's hand lightly before he pulls away.

Dean tries to tell himself he doesn't miss the contact, but it's a thin lie that holds no water.

* * *

The next week is a painful maelstrom of packing, farewells, and paperwork, in that order. Dean doesn't know how to feel about the fact that he's down as Sam's legal guardian, so he just counts his blessings and grits his teeth as he signs whatever he needs to sign to make sure that social services isn't going to cart his brother off in the middle of a pop quiz. Ellen and Jo get him settled into their guestroom within a couple of days, and then it's all just a matter of separating everything else into what to keep, what to sell, what to throw away, and what to put in storage. Dean only packs a couple of duffel bags worth of clothes for his stay at Cas' place, and makes plans to come get Sam—and whatever's in storage—in time for Christmas.

It all happens way too fast and slow at the same time. One minute he's hurrying, trying to get everything in order as soon as possible, and the next he feels like he's just waiting around for something he will never, ever be ready to do: leave his baby brother to his own devices, and in the care of others. The part of him that just wants to get it over with is all but smothered by the part that's praying something will keep him here, make it impossible for him to leave.

And Cas…Cas is the only thing keeping him sane and the next to last straw on the crazy camel's back. He doesn't know what he would do without that steady presence there, keeping his head cool and his thoughts straight. At the same time, it's a constant reminder of what's coming, and not just the part where he's leaving Sam.

He and Cas barely know each other. This knowledge keeps escaping him somehow, only to rear its ugly head and surprise him in little moments that shouldn't mean anything, but do. Like when Cas knows what he's been doing for the last two years, but he has no idea what Cas has been up to. Or like his moment of surprise that Anna and Gabe don't live at the Milton place anymore, and haven't for over a year now. All these little thing just keep reminding him: they didn't part under good circumstances. They were just kids back then. They've both changed so much. They have almost nothing in common. They still haven't talked about anything. They're moving too fast somehow even though they haven't so much as kissed. Dean runs through this anxious litany in his head every single night, try as he may to let the warm presence of Cas beside him be enough to lull him to sleep. He feels like he's already gone past the point of no return and into a free fall…with nothing between him and a hard landing but Cas' arms. He wants that to be as reassuring as it once was. He wants Cas to make him feel free and safe at the same time, the way he always used to do.

He feels greedy for wanting anything else from the man, but he can't help it. He remembers one thing and has another, and he doesn't know how to reconcile the two, or if he even can. And yet the one time he opens his mouth to put his foot down and tell Cas he isn't going, that he doesn't want to, that he can't…Dean chokes. His throat won't let him say the words.

And all too soon it's the night before they leave, and Dean is at a going away party—he vehemently protested, everyone else summarily ignored him—at Ellen Harvelle's. He's sitting around a too-small dining room table, surrounded by the faces of his friends and family—Ellen, Jo, Bobby, Sam, Cas, this grumpy old guy named Rufus that used to play cards with Bobby and John, and who always had hard candies for Dean and Sam when they were little—and he can't even imagine not being here after today. He watches Ellen laugh her full-throated, head-thrown-back laugh at something Bobby is saying, and thinks of what it'll be like not to live down the street from her anymore. He watches Jo shoot him shy looks from behind her hair across the table and realizes he probably won't get to watch her finish growing up. He thinks of Bobby, working all by himself in the salvage yard every day with no company.

Dean raises his glass and clears his throat. "Hey, uh…everybody," he says a little shakily. "I'd like to make a toast."

"This oughta be good," Jo quips, then blushes to the roots of her hair when Dean throws her a grin and a wink.

"You betcha, sweetheart. My toasts are the best."

"Get on with it, y'idjit. I'm ready to send you youngins to bed," comes Bobby's characteristic grumpy affection. Dean grins wider.

"Right. We'll get right on that. But first…I just wanna say thank you. All of you. Sammy 'n me…our family comes with a lotta baggage and lately, it seems like we got more holes in our family tree than branches. But…you're always there and you don't have to be, and…just…thanks."

Ellen's eyes are shiny, and Bobby makes a furtive swipe at his under cover of readjusting his ball cap. Rufus raises his glass to Dean and nods, and Sam grins across the table at him. Dean feels a warm hand on his arm, just under the table. He leans into the touch ever so slightly, and tries to feel anchored by it. After all, tomorrow it's the only thing that's going to keep him from being completely set adrift. The thought terrifies him.

* * *

"You sure about this, Sammy?" Dean isn't even trying not to sound choked up, now. His bags are packed into the trunk of the Impala and Cas is in the passenger's seat, trying to give Dean the chance to say goodbye to his brother in private. Dean kinda wishes he was standing there instead, being the buffer between them. He doesn't know how to say goodbye to this place, doesn't know how to even begin to say goodbye to Sam. It may not be the nicest house on earth, or have the best memories…but it's still their home. It's the only one they've ever known, and they're both leaving it. Bobby's made some noise about a potential buyer, so probably the next time Dean's in town it'll belong to someone else, a family filling it with their stuff and their smells and their new memories. He can't imagine it. He doesn't want to.

"I'm sure, Dean," Sam says gently, as if he knows exactly what Dean's thinking. He probably does. "Now quit worrying and let someone take care a you for once, okay? You need a break from all this."

Impulsively, Dean reaches out and pulls his brother into a tight hug. Sam hugs him back immediately, warm and safe and still smelling like their house even though he's been staying at Ellen's for two nights now. Dean breathes it in and wonders if he'll be able to know when Sam walks into a room without even looking in a couple of months, the way he does now.

"Hey," Sam jokes. "Don't worry. We'll be down the hall from each other again before you know it! I'll walk right off the stage at graduation after I get my diploma and hop the first bus to Alabama in my cap and gown." Dean pulls back and grins.

"You better not," he says. "Then I'll just have to drive all the way back to Alabama myself. No way am I missin' your graduation."

Sam grins from ear to ear at that, and gives Dean a playful shove toward the car.

"Get goin'," he says. "You have two days of drivin' ahead of you, and all kinds of issues to work out." Dean blinks.

"Wha—"

"Don't even," Sam interrupts him. "I'd have to be blind, deaf, and mute with no arms not to notice. You guys need to talk about stuff." He nods toward Cas as he says it, and Dean's chest locks up. He just rolls his eyes.

"Okay, the goodbyes are over and you're being a nosy little brother again, time to go." He jogs around to the driver's side of the car and opens the door, sliding into the front seat and cranking the Impala, relishing the engine's purr even through the nerves brought on by his meddlesome little brother's big mouth.

He puts the car in reverse and waves a hand out the door at Sam as he peels out of the driveway, scattering dust with the tires as he goes. Sam waves back from their old front porch, rolling his eyes and flipping his too-long hair out of his eyes with his other hand. Cas is quiet in the passenger's seat, still allowing Dean his goodbye. Dean's gaze flits back and forth between the road and the rear view mirror as the car rolls down the driveway, until they turn onto the main road and the porch—and Sam—are obscured by the tree line.

At first it's easy. It's elating, really. Dean has never driven any real distance, and certainly not like this: on the open road, in a car of his own with no deadlines. They don't have a set time for when they need to arrive, as long as Cas stops at a pay phone to check in with Hester—and Dean with Ellen—every night if they decide to take a detour. "Make it an adventure," Ellen told him, and he plans to do just that. He's got his whole savings divided between his wallet and a lockbox under the passenger's seat, and it's not much but it'll get them there with some to spare.

Dean keeps the windows down, relishing the cool autumn air and the rushing sound competing with the music in his ears. He sings along to all his favorite songs and can't help but laugh when Cas joins in because wow…he knew he was no Sinatra, but Cas _really _can't sing. They make themselves hoarse trying to drown each other out on Zeppelin, Kiss, AC/DC, and the one Kansas song Dean actually likes.

They stop for dinner at a place called Smith's just off Route 13 in Missouri. It's kind of a hole, but the food is great and the staff are all friendly, fun people, the kind who turn their jobs into something Hollywood glamorous and hometown warm with their easy camaraderie and endless banter. It's a slow night—being Monday and all—so all the waitresses gather around their table, chatting and giggling and flirting with them. Dean grins and laps it up while Cas blushes and mumbles and picks at his burger. He's not used to that much attention, but he can't help but smile at how at home Dean looks, joking and laughing with complete strangers. It's not a side of Dean he's known before this, and he likes it. He likes even more the way Dean never pays special attention to any one girl, and politely declines all attempts to coax him away from the table. He's not even sure it has anything to do with him, but he likes it all the same.

They don't make it out of Smith's until nearly ten even though they stopped around six o'clock. It's pitch dark and slightly chilly, and Dean shoves his hands into the pockets of his jacket and hurries to the car, anxious to get the heat running and get back on the road. Cas is just behind him, arms wrapped around his middle and eyes, as always, on Dean. Of course, this means he doesn't see the deep crack in the pavement, and promptly goes down in a heap with a quiet _oof _that causes Dean to turn.

"Cas?!" He's by his side in seconds, hands on his shoulders and peering into his face, anxious green eyes far too bright and close. Cas can see their breath mingle in the air between them, can feel its warmth on his face.

"Cas…hey buddy, you okay?"

"M'fine," he mumbles, trying to avoid looking Dean in the eyes. Things between them have been…distant. Good, but very hands off. Which means he can't lean forward and kiss Dean's lips, no matter how much he wants to right in that moment. He does let Dean help him up, though, and if he leans into Dean's side a little more than necessary well, he's only human.

"Thank you," he says softly as he slides into the car. "I must be getting sleepy. I'm not usually so clumsy."

"No big deal," Dean says lightly. "Just…be careful, okay? I turned around and you were in the dirt. Scared me, man." His tone is still light, but Cas hears the note of sincerity in it. He doesn't know whether to smile at the concern or frown at the protectiveness; he doesn't want to be someone else Dean feels he has to take care of.

The rest of the night is passed in silence. Dean starts to put on music again, but after Cas curls up in his seat and goes to sleep he turns the radio off and settles for humming quietly, the soft tones lost to the open window as soon as they leave his mouth. The cold air is exhilarating at first, but eventually he just feels chilled and sleepy. His eyes hurt from staring at headlights, and he's ready to turn in. He takes the next exit he sees with a promising Lodging sign.

The Budget Inn is a creepy little place. It looks more like someone's house than a motel, and Dean thinks fleetingly of Norman Bates and his mommy dearest. He's too tired to drive any further though, so he puts it in park and cuts the engine, turning to Cas and shaking his shoulder gently.

"Hey, Cas. Wake up."

"Mmmfffn." Cas curls up tighter and scowls, shrinking away. Dean grins.

"Okay then. I'm gonna go get us a room. I'll be right back."

He climbs out of the car and stretches his stiff muscles. It's freezing, but the air feels good now that he's in motion again, and he runs to the office on his brief second wind. It's a stuffy little place with a pane of glass separating him from the owner, who's deeply enough asleep that Dean has to actually bang on the glass to wake him up. He's a ratty looking little guy with curly reddish hair and a scruff that gives the impression he doesn't care, more than that he likes the way he looks with a beard. He snuffles his way to consciousness and gives Dean a form to fill out, then chats at him as he does.

"So," he says. "What's your story?"

"My story?" Dean grunts, focusing on the form. That second wind is gone already and he is wiped. The idea of a bed—even a scratchy, hard bed with questionable sheets—is almost too alluring for him to concentrate.

"Yeah…young kid like you getting a motel in the middle of the night? You run away from home? Runnin' from the cops? Got a girl with you?" Dean huffs a little laugh.

"Nah, no girl," He says, not really thinking about it.

"Oh," the guy says, sounding slightly nonplussed. "A guy? Huh. Well hey, that's cool too. Wouldn'a figured you for the type, but hey. Takes all sorts, you know?"

Dean looks up slowly from the form, eyes round and frozen at his mistake.

"What? No! I mean…we're just…uh…traveling together. As friends."

Ratty Motel Guy just puts up his hands, placating. "Hey, like I said. That's cool. No judgment here. Just, y'know…be safe or whatever. And that'll be $38.95."

Dean shoves the money and the form at him and hightails it out of there as fast as he can, cheeks burning. If there is one thing he is totally unprepared to do on this little sleep, it's explaining to a motel clerk in bumfuck nowhere—no pun intended and _oh god why did he have to think that?_—that he's not here for a night of no-tell screwing with a dude. He shakes his head, trying to laugh at the situation as he approaches the Impala. In the passenger's seat Cas is stretching and blinking sleepily, and Dean's laugh dies in his throat.

Cas looks…well. His hair is mussed and his eyes are hooded, His clothes are wrinkled and his shirt is riding up a little, exposing a sliver of smooth, tanned skin. He looks too damn good, and Dean is suddenly regretting getting a room with only one bed, even if they usually do share and even if it is ten dollars cheaper. No wonder the guy thought they were—

"Hey," he says, going for nonchalant and utterly failing.

"Dean? Is everything alright?" And no, it really isn't. Dean is scared and homesick and nervous for no fucking reason, and that's before he factors in the giant hole in his gut that feels a little emptier every time he stops to think about the fact that his dad is dead and the world just kept on turning. He's on his own in the world, and he just left Sammy behind, and he and Cas are about to share a motel bed totally _alone _and God damn that ratty little bastard behind the counter, because Dean was fine until he had to stop and _think _about anything.

Cas is waking up a little more now, sitting up in his seat and fixing Dean with bright eyes. He looks as if all his sharp edges have been filed down while he slept, and Dean has to smile a little in spite of the knot in his stomach.

"Yeah. It's…it's all fine, Cas. Let's get some sleep?"

It's a silent plea for Cas to let it drop, and he does. Instead of pushing further he drags himself out of the car and goes to the trunk to grab their duffels while Dean unlocks the door. The night air is unpleasantly wet, cold, and close in a way that seems unusual when they're still this far west, but the air in the room is warm, dry, and that peculiar mix of sterile and stale that only seems to exist in cheap motels.

Cas drops their duffels in the corner by the door and immediately starts stripping off his shirt before Dean's even closed it behind them, eager to separate himself from the fabric. He feels unpleasantly sticky after the short trek from the car. It takes him a moment to notice that Dean has crossed to the other side of the bed and is just standing there, watching him. He's halfway out of his jacket, one arm still in the sleeve like he forgot what he was doing, just looking at Cas across the dark room.

"Dean?"

He jerks a little, as if he hadn't realized what he was doing, and goes back to removing his clothes. He's slow and methodical, taking his time with every layer and draping them neatly over the chair in the corner. He rolls down the sleeves of his flannel button up, concentrates on undoing each button as if the task is utterly vital, and then buttons it up again before he spreads it over the chair, face-up. Next comes the shirt underneath, a fitted white t-shirt that's pulled slowly over his head, ruffling his hair on the way off before it joins the flannel, laid face up and so strangely neat. Cas realizes he's staring, but he can't seem to look away. It's a meticulousness that is utterly unlike Dean and yet somehow all the more mesmerizing because of that.

There's a curling in his stomach and a finger of heat trailing up his spine, and knowing he can't follow those feelings, knowing he can't let following even become a topic of conversation right now, just makes him want it more until his whole body seems to be prickling with it. He's closing the distance between them before he realizes he's doing it, stepping close until Dean has no choice but to stop what he's doing and look at him.

"Dean," he says again, and his voice sounds tight to his own ears. Dean looks at him at last, eyes wide with questions and _fear…_and just like that, it's gone. Just a flash of heat lightning, searing but ultimately silent. Cas takes a deep breath and reaches out one hand, careful and gentle, to grip Dean's arm before sliding down to twine the fingers of their hands together. He keeps his eyes on Dean's face the entire time, waiting for the slightest indication that he shouldn't. Dean just squeezes his hand and offers a tired, relieved smile.

"We should get some sleep," Cas says. So they do.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I am so sorry that this is late! My life has been a complete roller coaster for the last couple of weeks, and I've just been exhausted on the few occasions that I actually had time to write. But here it is, and I hope you like it! I know not a lot happened in this chapter, but that should change in the next! Thanks so much to my amazing Beta for all her awesome input and hard work, and to all of the wonderful people who've been leaving me such great reviews. And for anyone who wants reviews or to know when there might be delays in the update schedule I'll be posting all of that on my tumblr account ( .com) under the tag "TBC updates".


	6. Chapter 5: The Space Between

_Eighteen Months Ago_

Castiel is floating in a haze of light and color. There are words being spoken, someone shouts his name, there is laughter and music…but his brain is slippery, he's moving too quickly from one moment to the next for any of these things to touch down and make an impact.

He bumps into someone and thin, pale arms go around his neck, pulling him close to a body that's hot and soft and presses against him in all kinds of intriguing ways. He looks down into a pair of wide dark eyes that glint and spark at him in the half light. She tugs at him, coaxing him away from the throng of bodies toward one of the empty corners. It doesn't feel like he's been anchored in the storm so much as strapped to it, and Castiel goes easily, hearing without really feeling his back hit the wall.

The kiss isn't felt either, but it's certainly sensed. He loses his hands in the tangle of her black hair and closes his eyes, lets the thump and strobe of his surroundings fade into the slide of her lips against his. Her nails rake his shoulders and he groans, thinking that it should have hurt but it doesn't. Nothing hurts in this moment. He doesn't feel a thing.

She's laughing when he pulls back for air, eyes glassy and cheeks flushed with a sort of dazed rapture that he doesn't feel, but oh, he wants to. He follows her without question after that moment, taking her hand and being led into all the warm, shadowy spaces she has to show him. It's easy, and it's painless, and he doesn't ask himself if he's using her or worry that she's using him. They're simply putting each other to good use, and as long as she keeps laughing, keeps looking at him with that shiny-eyed wonder that belies the casual, taunting cruelty that drips from her mouth like honey on the rare occasions that he tries to actually talk to her…well, it's better than _gone_. It's better than empty, than _nothing_. He'll take it.

* * *

_Present Day_

When Castiel wakes up, he's alone. He blinks and reaches his hand across the empty space, as if confirming to his half-conscious brain that Dean really isn't there. The sheets are still warm, but his chest seizes up anyway.

Sitting up, Castiel registers that Dean's clothes are gone from the chair. He can hear the shower running, though, and he relaxes a bit, telling himself to stop being an idiot. Dean isn't going to just leave him here in some motel in the middle of nowhere.

_But he could, _his traitorous brain whispers. He shakes his head and throws the covers back, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and standing, stretching and grimacing at how stiff he feels. Clearly even his transient lifestyle hasn't been enough to prepare him for the nightmare that is a motel bed. His back feels like it should be one big bruise.

Castiel doesn't have anything to do to keep himself occupied while he waits for Dean, so he opens the door and squints into the gray light of the early morning. The parking lot is dotted with cars of varying colors, makes, and levels of care. The Impala is parked a couple of spaces down from their door. Cas steps out in his bare feet, toes curling for a moment against the surprising coldness of the pavement, and pads over to the car.

It really is beautiful, and he marvels at how much time Dean must have spent on it. According to his letters, it had been a barely-recognizable pile of scrap metal. Now it gleams like onyx beneath the thin layer of road dust, reflecting his own distorted shadow back at him. Castiel isn't exactly a gear head, but even he can appreciate this machine. He thinks of the way Dean looks in the driver's seat, relaxed and at ease inside something of his own creation. Dean handles this car like it's second nature, even though Cas knows he's only been able to drive it for a few weeks now. He was there for the test drive, watching Sam and Dean from the back seat as something that should have been an occasion for proud smiles and astonished laughter—he understands the car was supposed to be a surprise for their father—was carried out in silence and with solemn faces.

They'd driven it the short distance from Bobby's to Ellen's and back. Dean had looked at his feet, unable to completely suppress a bashful grin, when Bobby had come out to marvel at it and told Dean it was "damn good work, kid. Didn't think she'd ever actually run again." Castiel liked Bobby Singer after that, despite the suspicious looks Bobby continued to give him right up to their last day in Lawrence, and much for the same reasons he first decided he liked Sam. It was obvious to Castiel that Dean was surrounded by people who loved him.

_Was._ Because now they're on a road trip to Alabama, where the only person who loves Dean is…

Castiel turns and walks back to the room, stepping inside and closing the door behind him just as Dean opens the door to the bathroom. Castiel has to blink him into focus; between the steam coming from the bathroom door and the sudden change in light, all he can see for a moment is a dark blur. When he does come into focus, Dean is all bright eyes and still-damp hair sticking straight up from being rubbed vigorously with a towel. He's already dressed, in the same clothes he wore the day before, and he looks so good and clean and Cas wants to reach out and touch him, wrap him in his arms and refuse to let go even when they have to leave. He doesn't understand where this obsession with touching Dean has come from, all of a sudden. It just feels like if he blinks or turns his eyes away, Dean will be gone. And the thought of Dean being gone sets up a tight, panicky ache that starts in his chest but radiates outward until his whole body feels locked up with the dread of it.

"Hey, Cas…if you need the shower you might wanna wait a few minutes. It got kinda cold there at the end of mine."

Castiel nods jerkily and moves toward his bag, feeling ill-equipped to make conversation just now. Dean looks at him a little oddly, but he doesn't see it. He focuses on changing his clothes, opting to forego the shower in favor of getting out of this stifling, dark little room just a little sooner. It's been feeling smaller by the minute ever since he woke up in bed alone.

* * *

_One Year Ago_

Deep down, buried under disappointment and a talent for avoidance that's been honed to a fine art by now, Castiel is a hopeless romantic. A part of him still believes in unlikely beginnings, glowing middles, and happy endings. Sometimes he looks at Meg and thinks there couldn't be an unlikelier beginning, if only the middle would deign to glow. He never tells her he imagines the two of them riding off into the sunset; best-case scenario, she'd laugh. Worst-case, he wouldn't see her for at least a week.

It's how they punish each other, and Castiel knows it's sick: two people who are terrified of being left and who can't sit still, cutting each other off indefinitely with no warning just to show that they can. Just so Meg can look him dead in the eye and say "I don't need you," and feel like she means it. Just so he can shrug when she says it, as if it doesn't cut him. "Good," he says. "The day you need me is the day I run for the hills and never come back."

But he always does, and so does she, and that's what he holds onto, during the long stretches of time he goes without seeing her—sometimes her choice, sometimes his. And when they meet again after days or weeks apart, it's an incomparable high. They glue themselves together from foreheads to toes and sink into each other like blood on white cotton, marking and owning and begging and giving, giving, giving whatever the other asks. Meg tells him with her eyes all the things she won't admit out loud. Castiel answers with his hands, and maybe this is why they work. Neither of them expect anything and they both deliver.

Even so, sometimes when they're hidden away in a quiet room on cool sheets Castiel thinks of blue sky, of wind through trees and warm, green grass. He looks down at her pale, round face, brown eyes made into pools of shining black by the dark, and he can't help but recall sun-drenched skin and that feeling of being in the midst of a fairy tale. Sometimes he despairs of their unlikely beginning ever amounting to anything like a happy ending.

The gray doesn't lift as the morning ages. By afternoon the sky is a dark, heavy blanket looming low over the tops of the sparse trees and evenly-spaced telephone poles on the sides of the highway. They opt for the drive-through at a Burger King for lunch rather than braving the chilly wind, and Castiel takes extra care not to drop anything on the seats in the Impala. They haven't spoken much all day. Dean's kept the radio on low, as if waiting for Castiel to talk to him. Cas doesn't feel like talking. He can sense Dean glancing over at him every five minutes, but Dean doesn't say anything either. It feels like they've reached it, that crucial point where they actually have to talk about all the things between them that have gone thus far unaddressed and unexplained. He had hoped they wouldn't reach it so fast. Maybe, if he's honest with himself, he'd hoped they wouldn't get here at all.

Castiel isn't sure how to give an account of himself. It isn't as though he decided all at once not to answer any of Dean's letters. It was more gradual than that, a long series of procrastinations and perfectly good excuses, followed by bouts of chemically-induced forgetfulness and then even longer periods of indecision and shame, until one day he realized he was never going to write anything back because, well…what could he possibly say? _I'm sorry I put off writing you because I was angry and then because I was busy and then because I was sad and then because I was too proud and then because I was too out of it to remember?_ Somehow, he doubts even Dean, forgiving as he is, will understand something like that.

Castiel isn't the same sweet, naïve, slightly wild boy he was when he and Dean last knew each other. He's mostly just wild now. His habitual vices are a precious few, but he can't think of one he hasn't at least dipped his toes into. He's surprised Dean can't smell it on him, the sheer number of things—of people—he's tried to lose his sorrows in. And worst of all is the one he came back to over and over again, worse because she's more than just a single indiscretion. Hell, she accounts for about half of them on her own, and probably talked him into a few he would otherwise never have dared. Castiel has no idea how he's going to explain Dean Winchester and Meg Masters to each other.

They pass the rest of the day in that same uneasy silence, and the tension seems to grow with every mile. Castiel's neck aches with the effort of not glancing at Dean, and he's sure Dean's one covert glance away from cumulative whiplash. The radio mercifully stays clear for most of the drive, only cutting out for one intensely uncomfortable hour somewhere in Arkansas. By the time they stop for dinner—a little place called Jake's in a town with the unlikely name of Okolona, Mississippi—Castiel's nerves are ready to snap. He knows they only have one more day of driving, and he can't imagine spending it like he spent today. As Dean pulls into an empty parking spot, Castiel finally turns to look at him for the first time in hours and opens his mouth to speak.

The words die as he takes in Dean's expression. He looks…well, Castiel's never actually seen Dean get angry, but he's pretty sure he's looking at it now. Dean's eyes are fixed straight ahead, jaw tight and lips pressed into a thin line. His grip on the steering wheel is unnecessarily tight, especially given the fact that the car is in park. Castiel's heart sinks.

"Dean—"

"Let's grab some food," Dean interrupts him gruffly. "We still gotta find a place to sleep for the night." And he's out of the car and walking away before Castiel can muster the will to say anything else.

Castiel pulls himself out of his seat, feeling heavy. He's done it again, left it too long. This is the final reason he didn't write back, or call. After a while, it would have been adding insult to injury, wouldn't it? It didn't matter how many times Dean told him he missed him, told him he wanted him to write…Castiel couldn't. He couldn't explain why he hadn't before and he couldn't just pretend that long silence never happened. He just wasn't ready to break himself open and explain to someone who was so far away and unreachable all the many ways in which he was broken. He stands by the Impala and watches Dean's retreating back, and he still isn't ready.

Except that now, Dean is here. He's angry, but he isn't a memory or a hypothetical "someday." He's right here, and Castiel takes a deep breath because he knows that ready or not, he's going to have to push his way through all that anger and try to explain himself.

Knowing this does nothing to loosen the pit of dread in his stomach as he jogs across the dark parking lot to catch up.

* * *

They don't talk at dinner. They don't talk after, in the car on the way to their next motel. Dean seems to sink deeper into his anger, and Castiel just keeps trying to gather his courage…only to lose it in a nauseating lurch of his stomach every time he glimpses Dean's face.

It isn't until they're in their motel room that he finally pulls himself together enough to speak. They're lying in the dark, in separate beds this time. That distance of only a few feet seems vast and insurmountable as Castiel lays there staring at what he's fairly certain is Dean's back. It's pitch black in the room, the kind of darkness only found in the country, devoid of street lights and only interrupted occasionally by the headlights of a passing car on the road outside. Castiel can hear Dean's breathing, imagines he can make out a thicker darkness that marks the curve of shoulder, the dip of his lower back. Castiel half-whispers across the space between them, hoping he's not too far to reach.

"Dean?"

No answer.

"Dean." He says it again, a little louder.

"Go to sleep, Cas," Dean mumbles, but it doesn't sound sleepy. It sounds defeated, and it hurts.

"I can't," Castiel says, rolling over and sitting up to peer in Dean's general direction. "I need to talk to you." Dean makes a noise at that, a low, dry shadow of something that might have been a laugh.

"Coulda talked to me all day today," he says, and it's bitter.

"I didn't know what to say," Castiel tries. He hears Dean roll over, and when he speaks he sounds closer. Castiel almost thinks he can see Dean's eyes glinting at him through the dark.

"How about telling me why the hell you didn't write to me for two goddamn years? That's a good place to start." Castiel flinches. He's never heard Dean sound like this.

"Dean, I'm—"

"Don't you dare tell me you're sorry," Dean snaps. "Sorry's not gonna cut it."

Castiel's mouth clicks shut. He feels like something is cutting off his air supply. The silence expands around them, grows thick and hard…and then it breaks when Dean sighs. When he speaks, his voice is soft. All the fight is gone, as suddenly as it came, and all that's left is that small, sad question that Castiel still doesn't have a good answer to.

"I just wanna know why, man. All that time, I thought…well, at first I thought you were just…dealing with…you know." Castiel does know. He swallows, hard. Even now, the thought of Michael leaves a bad taste in his mouth and causes a dry, scratchy feeling to come creeping into the corners of his eyes.

"But then…I started to think maybe you just forgot about me, or maybe it all didn't mean as much to you, like I was just there and gone and that was it. Fuck," he bites out shakily, "sometimes I thought I'd made it all up in my head."

"Dean—"

"But then you showed up again, and I _know. _I know it's not any of that. So what _was _it?" Dean's voice rises on the last part, and cracks painfully. "What did I do to you that was so goddamn terrible?"

"You…you _left." _Castiel practically gags on the words. He didn't mean to say it. He was never going to breathe a word of this to Dean, but he feels like he's choking and this is the thing that's choking him.

"You left me," he says again. "You said it was the worst thing anybody could do, and then…then you—"

He can't finish. It's clawing at the back of his throat, but he can't say it. He can't admit this, because if he does he'll have to admit everything else: how lonely he was, how lost. He'll have to explain so many other things that he just isn't ready to deal with yet.

"Cas," Dean's voice breaks through, sounding angry and shocked. "I did _not _leave you."

And that's when Cas feels whatever control he had over this situation start to crumble away into nothing. He lets out a shrill laugh that sounds manic to his own ears, and the tears are there, blurring the edges of the darkness into each other and making his voice sound thick and far away.

"Yes. Yes you did. You left. Sure, I knew you had to go home soon anyway, but you left _early. _Just as soon as things got hard and we couldn't be those quirky Miltons with their eccentric ways, helping you escape from your own dreary life—"

"Cas, that's not—"

"If you say fair, so help me God," Castiel grinds out. "Admit it, Dean. I want to hear you say it. You came to us to get away, but then it got difficult and you ran."

"Cas—"

"No! Hester gave you an out and you _took _it. I _needed _you, and you were on the first bus back to Kansas!"

He doesn't know when he went from barely being able to whisper these things to almost shouting them.

"You stupid sonofabitch," Dean shouts back. He's in Castiel's face now, just two pinpricks like light reflected off obsidian in the dark and hot breath in his face, but he's there. He's close, and they're shouting at each other. It feels terrible and wonderful at the same time, after a day of mutual avoidance.

"You think I _wanted_ to leave?" Dean snaps. "I didn't want to be anywhere but there with you! But I wasn't gonna start a goddamn _fight_with your sister. I wasn't gonna give her somethin' else to worry about, on _that day_ of all days. And even when I was gone, I never _left_you! I wrote you every damn day, at first. When I still thought you were just busy and hurting. I kept writing even when I finally figured out you were never gonna answer. So don't tell me I left, Cas. _You're _the one who left, not me. You forgot about me. Hell, for all I knew, you _hated_ me."

"Oh, I hated you alright," Castiel spits, and he is so far beyond regret at this point. He feels like a gaping wound already, so he might as well let Dean see just how deep the rot goes. "I hated you whenever I couldn't get drunk enough or high enough, or…or _fucked out _enough to forget about you."

"Cas." Dean's voice sounds dead, and Castiel ignores it. He can't stop now, if he stops he'll never get it all out and he needs to. He needs Dean to know just how fucked up he is so he can get the disgust and the rejection over with. He needs to know it's over before he allows himself to hope for even a second that it might not have to be.

"Leaving didn't help me, Dean, and it didn't save Hester any pain. It just made me _alone. _While you were being noble and polite, I was slogging through all that pain _by myself. _And I did it, maybe because I'm too stupid or stubborn to just lay down and die when I should, but it wasn't pretty. And I'm sorry if a hundred and fifty-four letters from someone who was never there were cold comfort."

"Yeah," Dean challenges, finding his voice again. "And what if you'd bothered to answer one? Huh? Hell, Cas…I was just waiting for a sign that you even _wanted _me anymore, how was I supposed to know how much you needed me? And if you were alone…where d'you think that left me?"

He sounds sad again, defeated and tired…and for the moment, Castiel forgets that he's supposed to be waiting for his words to sink in so Dean can write him off as damaged goods. All he can think about is how much he hates the sound of that exhaustion in Dean's voice, and he's leaning forward in the dark, reaching out without knowing what he's doing, only knowing he's got to make that stop.

His lips connect with Dean's cheek first, chaste and accidental, but he doesn't stop there. Castiel presses kisses to every inch of Dean's face, on his cheeks and forehead and nose and eyelids and chin. He reaches up to hold Dean's face in his hands as he presses their lips together, a little hungry and a little despairing, and it isn't supposed to feel like this. It isn't supposed to taste like salt water and smell like cold sweat but God help him, he doesn't _care. _There's a connection here that doesn't depend on words and therefore doesn't falter for lack of the right ones. It's in the way Dean leans into his touch without hesitation, the way he crawls onto the bed and winds his arms around Castiel, returns the kiss and then some. It's such a Dean thing to do, too, always giving more than he gets in return, but not this time. Castiel kisses him harder, carding fingers over his short hair and groaning when Dean responds with a bite to his lower lip.

Castiel keeps his eyes shut tight even in the perfect darkness, and for the millionth time that night he feels like he can't breathe. Kissing Dean feels like a sledgehammer and it's breaking him, grinding him into dust beneath it without mercy.

Then Dean is pulling away and _no, _that's even worse. Castiel can feel his brain disintegrating. He's cigarette ash on a windy day, he's water droplets in the sun, he's—

Dean's arms are wrapping around him, hands cradling his head and lips at his ear, just breathing. Castiel feels like broken glass being held together, and he melts into it. He curls his fingers into the hair at the nape of Dean's neck and presses his nose to Dean's cheek, whispering an endless stream of apologies. To his relief, Dean doesn't try to quiet him, doesn't tell him the words are unnecessary. Maybe he needs to hear them as badly as Castiel needs to say them.

They lay like that for what seems like hours, just wrapped up in each other's arms. Castiel breathes easily for the first time in days, maybe weeks. Maybe longer. The knot is gone from his stomach, replaced by a sleepy sort of awe at the man before him. A man who has some inkling, now, of how messed up he is, and isn't running. A man who holds him like he's precious without making him feel as if he's about to shatter.

He buries his face in Dean's shirt and breathes in deep, trying to memorize the smell of peace and quiet and _whole_. It's so different from the Dean he knew before, the boy who was all sunshine and grass stains. The man in his arms is more like a thunderstorm in August, lulling him to sleep while it cleans away all the heaviness in the air.

"Cas," Dean murmurs eventually. "What you said before. All those ways you tried to forget me. What happened?"

So Castiel tells him. Gradually, and often unable to meet his eyes, but he tells him almost everything. He doesn't have the energy left to sugarcoat it, so Dean gets the X-rated edition and Castiel waits, tensed every second for the gruesome little detail that will tip the scales and break this fragile thing between them to pieces. Dean listens without interrupting, asks a question here and there, and he never stops holding Castiel.

He doesn't mention Meg, and tries to tell himself it isn't because he's sure she will be the thing that makes it all too much.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Phew! I didn't think I was going to get this one on time, but I did! Thanks to ohamandalynn for helping me solidify some plot points here, and a million thanks to D, my pinch hitter beta for this chapter. And thank you all for your wonderful reviews and favorites and follows, they really do make my day.


	7. Chapter 6: Reunion

_Then (Alabama, Two Years Ago)_

Dean finds Castiel in the little play yard behind the church. He's sitting cross-legged in the tunnel at the top of the slide, shoulders hunched to make him fit. He looks like he's trying to disappear. Dean climbs the short set of steps up the back of the play set and plops down next to him, letting his legs dangle between the bars and watching his own feet intently. Neither of them says anything for several minutes.

"Cas," Dean finally says. "I have to go home."

"I know," Cas says dully. He doesn't turn towards Dean.

"I mean, I have to go home tomorrow," Dean clarifies, hating himself for saying it. Everything in him is screaming _wrong, no, stay. _He doesn't want to leave Cas alone to handle this. Even if he has no idea how in the world he can make this any better, he just _doesn't._

Cas jerks a little, but still doesn't speak, and Dean can't turn to face him. He can't seem to stop staring at his shoes.

"I figure you guys have enough trouble without worrying about me getting in the way all the time," he tries. He doesn't mention that Hester asked him to go; he doesn't want to throw her under the bus any more than he was willing to fight her on it.

"I guess so," Cas says. His voice sounds dead, and it makes Dean sick. He can feel the distance between them growing already, and he has no idea how to stop it.

"I'm gonna miss you, Cas," Dean whispers. He reaches out, tentatively, and places a hand on Castiel's shoulder. Cas doesn't lean into his touch like usual, but he doesn't shove the hand away either. Dean lingers there, unwilling to let go. This was never how he wanted to say goodbye.

"I'm going to see if Anna needs help with the kids," Cas says. He uncrosses his legs and pushes himself down the slide. He's walking away as soon as his feet touch ground, not looking back at Dean or waiting for him to follow. Dean _wants _to follow, but he's no longer sure of what Cas wants, so he just watches him go.

He doesn't see Cas again before he leaves.

* * *

_Now_

Castiel wakes to an arm thrown across his chest and a warm presence at his back. He leans into it with a smile, letting his eyes drift closed again. Dean tightens his hold and hums contentedly, pressing a kiss to the spot behind Castiel's ear. The sweetness of the gesture catches Cas off guard, and he rolls over to look at the man beside him, searching his face for the answers to questions he's afraid to ask. _Are we okay? Are we anything?_

Dean looks soft and sleep-rumpled, with his wrinkled shirt and his hair pressed flat on one side, sticking straight out on the other. He grins at Cas, eyes squinting against the watery light leaking in through the thin fabric of the motel room's curtains.

"Mornin'," he says hoarsely, clearly not as awake as Castiel feels.

"Good morning," Cas answers, trying to resist the urge to start pressing kisses to every inch of that face again.

"C'mere," Dean rumbles, pulling Castiel in closer against his chest. He goes willingly, burying his face in the collar of Dean's t-shirt and sliding his arms around Dean's waist under the covers. He revels in something as simple as being able to touch Dean like this. They may have shared a bed for almost the entire three weeks Castiel stayed with Dean and Sam in Lawrence, but it was more comfort than comfortable, too many things between them going unaddressed and each half expecting the other to disappear at any second. It felt like Dean never quite met his eyes the entire time.

When Cas looks up now he's fixed by clear tourmalines, half-lidded with sleep. Dean's freckles stand out stark against his tan skin in the steely gray light. Castiel decides he can't help himself after all and leans in to press a kiss to Dean's lips.

When Dean returns it without hesitation, Castiel's heart soars. For just a moment he's gone back in time two years, and this is everything it was ever supposed to be. They are young, relaxed, lazy creatures, made of warmth and bathed in light, connecting in all the right places. He's refused to let himself hope so far, but now he finally starts to believe that all the things he told Dean in the dark really don't matter in the light of day.

When they pull away Dean's eyes find his again immediately, and there's a softness in them that sets up a quiet, oddly pleasant ache somewhere beneath Castiel's ribs.

"Okay, sunshine," Dean chides quietly. "Let's go find some breakfast."

* * *

_Then (Alabama, Two Years Ago)_

It never occurred to Castiel that Michael might have known people outside of their family. That just makes him feel worse as he takes in all of the unfamiliar faces that have turned up to bid his brother farewell. There are people of every size, shape, and color, and seemingly from every walk of life. A cluster of elderly men stand with their stooped shoulders squared as much as possible and their heads held high, maintaining a dignity in their grief that Castiel can't begin to fathom. He wonders where they met Michael, what he did to command such straight-backed respect from men whose backs haven't been straightening easily for decades. He sees his Aunt Rachel and her daughter Ruby standing close together. Ruby looks unfamiliar to him in her misery; his only memories of her include pranks worthy of Gabriel and a wicked smirk.

He is hugged and touched and offered condolences from what seems like an endless line of strangers after the funeral. He bears it all with as much stoicism as he can and viciously thinks that when he dies, there will be no funeral at all. It doesn't feel like closure so much as a spectacle, an opportunity for everyone in the world to reach for pieces of a pain they have no right to. He doesn't want to be pitied and consoled by strangers who doubtless think they knew and loved Michael as well as he. Castiel wants to curl up around his love for his brother and guard it from their sight, gnash his teeth at anyone who comes too close and howl at anyone who dares to say they're sorry or they understand. Michael was _theirs. _No one else should get to act as if they understand what Castiel and his family are going through.

By the time they get home, Castiel is exhausted. He goes straight up to his room and slides the latch on the trapdoor shut behind him. Reaching under his bed, he pulls out a wooden box and crawls onto his bed with it, dumping the contents out in front of him.

Dean has only been gone for a week, but there are already three letters in front of him. He suspects Dean has been writing one every day, but Castiel hasn't had the energy to write him back yet. He feels horrible about the way he left things between them, or he would if he had room to feel more horrible than he does already. All things considered, he thinks Dean will understand if he takes a little time before responding. In the meantime, it's a comfort just to pull each one out and read the words in Dean's slightly messy handwriting. He writes the way he talks, and even now it has the power to make Castiel smile. He conjures up Dean's voice in his head and pretends he's here, pretends he never left. Castiel reads those letters over and over until the words swim in front of his eyes, and falls asleep with one of the pages still clutched in his hands.

* * *

_Now_

The weather hasn't actually improved much from the day before, but with the mood Dean's in it might as well be swimming weather. Anyone looking at him would think he's lost his mind with the way he can't stop grinning from ear to ear. He can barely chew his food for smiling at Cas across the rickety little dining table. Cas grins back and feeds him a piece of bacon, rolling his eyes when Dean nearly drops it because he really_ can't_ stop smiling. They're in a world of their own, oblivious to the people around them—both the young couple glaring over their cups of coffee and the old woman behind the counter who sends their waitress over with twice the amount of pancakes they actually ordered.

They took their sweet time getting up and leaving the motel, and they linger over breakfast. It's late in the afternoon before they actually get back on the road. The day just gets gloomier, but not even the low-hanging sky and the muted threats of coming thunder can put a damper on Dean. It's like a parody of yesterday in the best way possible; the radio is on, but otherwise they sit in companionable silence, each hyper-aware of every twitch and breath of the other. They keep glancing at each other, eyes just barely catching before they turn away, blushing and grinning. Cas' hand finds his at some point and their fingers twine together, resting on the console. Faced with a choice between shifting gears and holding Cas' hand, Dean simply learns on the fly how to drive without the necessity of letting go.

Dean insists on taking what he calls the "scenic route," meaning they stick to the winding, bumpy southern backroads as much as possible. Even then, he estimates it will only take them three hours to reach their destination. He's both looking forward to it and unaccountably nervous. Cas is still Cas, but he's also different. Dean can't help but wonder how loss and two years of distance have changed the rest of the Miltons.

It's nearing eight o'clock by the time the Impala turns onto the narrow, twisted gravel driveway that leads to the house, and it still feels too early for Dean. The Impala bumps along, drawing him closer and closer to the place where he last remembers feeling really and truly happy. His stomach turns over with every jolt.

He sees them for a moment, in his mind's eye: Anna laughing, her bright hair shimmering in the sun and a stripe of pink across her pale cheeks; Luci, cracking dry jokes in an even dryer voice without ever pulling his head out of whatever book he's reading, surprising a laugh out of Raphael; Hester glaring at him while Inias peeks out from behind her legs with big, shy eyes; Gabriel putting maple syrup on _everything, _including the inside of Luci's pillowcase, and insisting it was to give him sweet dreams; Michael, straight shoulders and a big smile, keeping his family together through every difficulty and making their home a safe harbor in an uncertain world; Uriel hero worshipping his older brothers from a distance, following them around and trying to be just like them.

And Castiel, leaning over Dean's bed on the morning they met, sitting by him at breakfast, standing at the edge of the woods, reaching out his hand with an unreadable expression, eyebrows lifted in a silent challenge. Castiel obscured by bees, doing the impossible and then shrugging it off. _I do it all the time. _Castiel taking a flying leap into the lake off the pier, coming up laughing and dripping, black hair plastered to his forehead and blue eyes sparking with mirth. Castiel's lips on his, Castiel's hands in his hair, Castiel's smiles. Castiel offering him a jar of honey, looking so worried. _Don't be mad at me, Dean._

"Dean," Castiel's voice breaks into his thoughts. He realizes he's let the car roll to a stop, just before the bend in the driveway that will bring the house into view.

"Are you alright?" Cas asks him softly. He offers a grin in response, but it's small compared to the smiles they've been trading since breakfast. Dean compensates with a gentle squeeze to the hand he's still holding across the console.

"Just nervous I guess," he admits quietly. "I haven't been here in so long."

"You wonder if it's changed much," Castiel says. _If it's changed as much as me, _he doesn't add.

"Yeah," Dean says. "I just…you guys were like my second family once. I keep wondering what kind of mess I left you in."

"You didn't make the mess, Dean. There was nothing you could have done."

"I could have been there," Dean disagrees quietly. Castiel just shakes his head and squeezes his hand back.

"We didn't let you. Let it go. And let's get inside before my legs are permanently bent to the shape of your seats."

That earns him another small smile, and Dean continues up the drive, staring straight ahead and trying not to take it in, trying not to really _see _it when he sees it. But he does anyway.

The house looms black at the top of the hill, imposing and strange. The windows are all dark, save for one corner on the bottom floor that Dean knows is the kitchen. A familiar red Sidekick is parked in front of the house, which strikes Dean as weird—they usually park in the back—until he remembers that Anna doesn't live here anymore. Seeing that little bit of evidence that it's true makes him feel sadder than he expected.

Dean parks his car beside Anna's and kills the engine. He and Cas sit there quietly for a moment, listening to the motor die down, before they finally pry their hands apart and climb out of the car. Dean stretches, feeling the satisfying pop and crack of bones and joints forced to stay in the same position for far too long. He pulls their bags out of the trunk, slinging two over one shoulder and tossing two more to Cas. He's bone tired all of a sudden, and he thinks nostalgically of that little bed in the attic.

_You don't even know if that's still Cas' room, _he thinks sleepily. A second later his brain screeches to a halt, wide awake and stumbling all over the implications of what just ran through it.

_Easy, Winchester, _he admonishes himself. _You're only here until you figure out what to do next. Don't go painting your name on the mailbox and writing up the wedding vows just yet._

He shakes himself out of his own head and follows Castiel up the handful of porch steps. The front door opens before they reach it, and Dean finds himself wrapped up in skinny arms and smothered by an abundance of red hair before he fully knows what's happening.

"Dean Winchester," Anna effuses. Her voice is higher than he remembers, and there's a slightly shaky note to it that sets off alarm bells, but when she releases him she's all smiles and those big, blue Milton eyes, just like he remembered. He drops his duffels and pulls her back in for another hug, lifting her off the ground and laughing.

"Anna! As I live and breathe," he exclaims, setting her back on her feet and grinning at her. "It's good to see you."

"It's great to see you," she agrees. "Now grab your bags and get inside. And stop giving me the death glare, Cas. I wasn't going to run off with him."

Dean gives Cas a look as if to say, "ooh, she caught you." Cas just scowls at Anna and rolls his eyes at Dean, but his slight blush gives him away, and Dean laughs again. He feels a little out of step in presence of another person he knows. He's been practically on another planet with Cas for the last three days, and the sudden re-entry is loud and bright and disorienting.

He follows Anna's bouncing steps into the front hall, dropping his bags where she points and heading into the kitchen ahead of Cas. He's met with the sight of Hester leaning against the counter on the opposite wall, looking uncharacteristically casual and somehow younger in jeans and a long button-up flannel shirt. Her dirty blonde hair is pulled back from her face in a haphazard approximation of the neat bun he remembers. When she sees him all she does is smile at him over her coffee mug, and Dean never thought he could miss someone glaring at him so much.

There's a pair of boys at the table, bent over what looks like math homework. The dark-skinned one with the round, serious face takes no notice when they come in, and it takes Dean a moment to realize he's looking at a teenaged Uriel. The pale, sandy-haired one looks up with wide eyes, face splitting into a slow grin when he sees Dean. Inias. It blows Dean away how much older they look; he remembers them as such little kids.

The kitchen is empty other than that, though, and Dean realizes that the house in general is too quiet for this early in the evening. There's no thump of music from Gabriel's room in the back of the house, no sounds of familial bickering filtering through the old walls. He thinks of the lightless windows he saw from the road. The hallways at his back are dark and empty, and it sends a chill down Dean's spine.

"Welcome home, Cassy," Hester says sincerely. "And hello again, Dean. Anna tells me you'll be staying with us for a while. Please make yourself at home."

"Thank you ma'am," he says, earning a laugh from Anna.

"Oh, don't call her ma'am. You'll make her feel old."

"Just tryin' to be polite," he mutters, and Hester smiles at him again.

"I appreciate that, but please…don't ever call me ma'am again." She makes a face that is so incongruous with how he remembers her, wrinkled nose and squinted eyes. It's more like something he would expect from Anna…while Anna's bell-like laugh is too loud and bright, more like something he'd have expected from Gabe once upon a time. He wonders who got the Michael seat in this game of sibling musical chairs, or if anyone did.

"Anyway," she goes on, clearing her throat and setting her mug aside, "the two of you must be tired. And hungry, if I know Cassy."

Cas groans at Dean's shoulder, sounding embarrassed, but Hester ignores him.

"Leftovers in the fridge, Anna was kind enough to help me return Cassy's room to a semi-inhabitable state, and you have the run of the house. I'm going to head to bed as soon as these two finish their homework. We'll have to save the full reunion for tomorrow."

And with that she goes to the sink with her mug and then busies herself checking over Inias' answers—long division, by the look of it, poor kid. It's abrupt, but much more like the Hester Dean remembers. He turns to Cas and Anna.

"So…food?"

* * *

_Then (Two Years Ago)_

Castiel finally makes himself come downstairs after the fourth time Anna bangs on his door. He hasn't eaten in a couple of days, but he doesn't feel particularly like doing it now. The gnawing in his stomach is buried under too many other pains to bother him much, and more than anything he just wants to stay asleep. Unconsciousness is relief, and the waking world barely feels as real as his dreams are anyway.

The sun is shining, and it shouldn't be. The house is still standing, there's still oxygen to breathe, the world is going on around them and it _shouldn't be. _It doesn't feel like the world should keep existing without Michael, and Castiel resents the universe's implication that Michael wasn't all that important to anyone but them. He hated those people at the funeral yesterday for daring to be sorry when they couldn't possibly know how hollow he felt, but he hates this more. He hates that there are people in the world going on with their lives as if nothing dire has happened because for them, nothing has. He wants the whole world on its knees and wailing.

Anna and Gabe are at the kitchen table, mugs of coffee in hand. No one else is around. Anna isn't smiling and Gabriel isn't joking, and Castiel's desires shift; he suddenly just wants this all to be over. He wants Gabriel to be laughing and he wants Luci to come downstairs and yell about some stupid prank Gabe's played on him. He wants to hear Raph and Luci bickering about religion and politics. He wants Uriel and Inias running around like wild things and Hester reprimanding them for it. He feels a sudden flash of anger at Michael, because it isn't bad enough he had to go and die, but he broke the whole family too and it's more than Castiel can take.

_But did you know sometimes I'm mad at her? My mom, I mean._

They come echoing up out of nowhere, those words Dean spoke to him one sunny day in what feels like another life. He remembers not understanding what Dean meant. He wishes he didn't understand them now.

Castiel turns around without saying a word and goes back to his room.

* * *

_Now_

Dean is standing at the foot of the ladder leading to Castiel's room in the attic. He looks up into the darkness above him, wondering if it's changed as much as everything else about this place has. He feels a gentle nudge at his shoulder: Cas.

"You're holding up the line, Dean," he says. Dean rolls his eyes and starts to climb, wincing at how loudly the ladder creaks every time he places his foot on the next rung.

"Two words, dude. WD-40."

"Technically, that barely counts as one word," Castiel says from behind him.

"Smartass," Dean shoots back. He pulls himself into the room and reaches up the wall for the light switch he remembers. It's still there, and when the light comes on Dean's breath catches for a moment.

It's like going back in time again. He could be seventeen, having just come in from swimming in the lake with Michael, Gabe, and Luci, dodging Hester as she yells at them about dripping water all over the rug in the hallway. Dean moves around the room slowly, taking in every familiar detail with a growing lump in his throat. The blue rug, the crisp white curtains at the little square window, the odd symbols carved into the bedposts...it's all there. Dean runs his fingers over the grooves in the cool wood. He's almost certain if he gets down on his hands and knees he'll find a stack of dusty books shoved underneath the edge of the bed, with _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland _sitting right on top.

"Dean?" He turns to find Castiel watching him from the hole in the floor, eyes slightly apprehensive. Dean tries to say something, but it gets caught and his vision blurs.

Castiel pulls himself into the room and is at Dean's side in a handful of seconds, grasping his upper arms gently and peering into his face, concerned.

"Dean?" He asks again. Dean shakes his head; he can't explain.

And just like it used to be, he doesn't need to.

"I know," Cas says softly. "Dean, I know. I needed just one thing to stay the same."

Dean holds Cas close and tight and just breathes it in, the same smell he remembers, clean wood and linen starch and Castiel, and the lingering old-dust scent of an attic just underneath. He feels like an idiot for getting teary-eyed over a room, but it's like rediscovering hope to stand here, in the one place preserved as a memorial to the last summer of his childhood.

He gives himself a minute to just take it in before he lets out a sigh and pulls back from Castiel.

"So…are we…I mean…" he trails off pointedly, and it takes Cas a moment before he catches on and immediately turns red.

"Hester and Anna made an assumption," Castiel mumbles, not meeting Dean's eyes. "Of course you're welcome to any vacant room in the house. We can get you unpacked and settled in tomorrow if you like." He doesn't ask, but Dean hears the request anyway: _stay with me, just one more night._

Dean looks around at the room, then back at the blushing man standing so close to him, shoulders drawn in tight in preparation for a rejection and eyes fixed on some random point on space beyond Dean's shoulder. He decides to stay.

* * *

**Author's Note:** First of all, let me apologize profusely for being a fail at keeping update deadlines. I wish I could say I had some big, wonderful mitigation for being over a week late, but I unfortunately do not. It was more like a ton of little reasons. Be that as it may, the chapter is here now. I know it's a little short and a little fluffy, but there will be plottiness coming up soon that I need to set the stage for. That being said, I want to let you all know that there will be a two to three week hiatus between this and the next chapter. Life is busy and inspiration is flagging, so I want to give myself time to make sure the next chapters are exactly what I want them to be before I go ahead. Thank you for reading my little story and I'll see you in a few weeks! And thanks a billion times to ohamandalynn and D, the two people keeping me sane and grammatically correct.


	8. Chapter 7: Woman's Blues

The thing no one ever stops to consider—and after all, why should they?—is that Hester had other plans for her life, once upon a time. She was precocious and ambitious; she dreamed of having adventures in faraway places, of romance and danger. Maybe she never let on otherwise, but the last thing Hester ever planned for herself was to live and die in Alabama.

Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans.

Michael wanted her to go to college. He begged and demanded, even threatened. In the end, though, he had to face reality. They had a house full of kids with no parents and no money. Michael dropped out, and Hester never enrolled. They stayed home to take care of their family, and they never complained or resented it.

But sometimes, after all the kids were put to bed and their budget had somehow been wrestled back into a positive balance against all the laws of mathematics, they would curl up together on the couch in the darkened living room, foreheads pressed together and hands clasped between them, and talk in whispers about all of the extraordinary things they might do.

"Maybe someday we'll sell the house and buy a boat, and spend all our time traveling from port to port, just moving on whenever we get bored."

"Maybe someday, when Gabe and Luci are old enough to help out, you can finish school and I can take some night classes."

"Maybe someday we'll run off to Nashville and be the redneck version of the Von Trapp Family Singers."

"Maybe someday Dad'll come back, and it'll turn out he was wandering around in the world somewhere with amnesia this whole time, and as soon as he remembers he'll come home as fast as he can, and he'll fix everything."

They were childish hopes, each one more improbable than the last, but to Hester they felt like small pieces of salvation. Those minutes on the couch were the only time they allowed themselves to be what they really were: scared, lonely, disappointed children. They propped each other up, all their aspirations reduced to an endless list of maybe-somedays. Sometimes, they could even be selfish.

"Maybe someday we'll just run off, just…take off in the car 'n drive, 'til we don't recognize anything and nobody knows who we are. Start over from the bottom and work our way up."

It's those moments Hester misses more than anything, those rare precious seconds when she could admit how much she hated being responsible all the time. She loved Michael for giving her that, for sharing it with her and never making her feel ashamed of it. A part of her knew that he carried more than she ever did; after all, he was the oldest. In a way, she was just as much a part of his self-enforced captivity as the rest of them. But he never made her feel it, any more than she would ever let Castiel or Uriel or Inias feel like a burden. True, sometimes in their fantasies they left the kids behind…but never each other. It was always _we._

Hester's well aware that what she felt—feels—for her older brother is not the normal affection shared between siblings, but their relationship wasn't like other siblings', either. They were just thrown together with a bunch of kids to raise one day, stuck playing house indefinitely with only each other to talk to, argue with, depend on. And oh, could they argue.

She misses it so much, misses _him _so much that sometimes it feels like it's choking her to death. Two years hasn't dulled the ache or filled in the gaping hole he left. She doesn't bother with maybe-somedays anymore. The only thing she's wanted since Michael died was to keep the rest of her family together, and to stop feeling as if she's being shredded into pieces from the inside out every time she thinks about Michael.

Maybe, someday.

* * *

Hester wakes to the first slivers of dawn creeping through the blinds on her bedroom windows. It's been years since her body allowed her to sleep in, even if she had nowhere to be. She sits up, looks around at the gray little room she's lived in for years. It's sparse and neat, muted colors and no clutter. It's not a place she feels comfortable, exactly, but it's a place she can be very still and quiet without anyone interrupting her to ask what she's thinking about, or whether she's alright.

Pushing back the covers, she swings her legs over the side of the bed and stands, stretching a little and rubbing at one eye. The floor is cool beneath her feet, and it creaks slightly as she walks. The house is old, and seems to groan and sigh when a person so much as breathes.

She takes the blue bathrobe from the nail on her closet door and shrugs into it, tying the sash into a neat, artless knot in the front. She grimaces at herself in the mirror. The careful bun she used to pull her hair into takes too much effort these days; she piles and twists it into a vaguely circular shape at the back of her head and clips it into place, not really caring when wisps of hair immediately escape around her temples and at the nape of her neck.

The house is quiet as she makes her way through the living room and across the foyer to the kitchen. She can see a light on under the door at the end of the hall as she passes, suggesting that Luci is either already awake or _still _awake. She shakes her head; there is no telling how he manages to function on the sleep he gets. It worries her, but lecturing him about it hasn't done any good since he was fourteen. Assuming it ever did.

The kitchen is empty. Hester heads to the coffee pot first, setting it to brewing before she pulls out a couple of frying pans, a carton of eggs, a package of bacon, bread, milk, and butter. She makes the bacon in the microwave, laid out in stripes and pressed between two layers of paper towels to soak up the extra grease, like her mom always did. The larger of the two pans gets three pats of butter and the lowest heat setting. She watches the butter start to melt for a moment before she goes to work mixing up the ingredients for French toast.

By the time the toast is golden brown on one side and the smaller pan is full to the brim with nearly-done scrambled eggs, Hester starts to hear stirring from upstairs. She smiles.

"If you feed them, they will come," she murmurs.

When Inias stumbles down the stairs in his sweatpants, following his nose like a character from an old cartoon, she has six plates laid out and ready with bacon, eggs, French toast, and slices of slightly under-ripe cantaloupe. Much to her surprise, Luci is the next one to appear.

"Mornin'," he mumbles, crossing the room to pour himself a cup of coffee. He's in yesterday's clothes, but they're wrinkled beyond hope so she's guessing he did actually sleep.

"Good morning," she says. "Late night?"

"Yeah," he says. "Oh hey…Izzy stayed over last night."

Hester raises an eyebrow at that. Luci's latest girlfriend is some combination of a mystery and a source of unease in the Milton household. Hester understands that Luci's practically grown. By the time she was his age, she'd been a mother for all intents and purposes for years. She knows Luci has done his share of growing up too fast and being a parent too young as well, but she'd really like to keep that from moving from the realm of their uniquely unfortunate family circumstances and into that of small town Southern clichés.

Luci sees her expression and draws in on himself, immediately defensive.

"You haven't even met her, Hes," he starts, but she interrupts him quietly.

"I know," she says, keeping her voice even. "I haven't. You might want to invite the poor girl to dinner sometime?" She gives him a Look. He glares back for a second before giving in, shoulders slumping.

"Yeah," he says. "I will. You know it's not like that, Hes. We fell asleep watching a movie."

Hester decides he's probably telling the truth; Luci does a lot of things she doesn't approve of, but he's never been a liar.

She lets the matter drop and goes back to loading a plate with food. Moments later, Uriel stumbles in. There's still no sign of Dean or Castiel, but they had a long trip the night before and she doesn't hold out much hope for them waking on their own. A part of her doesn't wish to disturb them, but another part would very much like to get the reintroductions over with. She feels ill at ease having a stranger in their home and privy to their lives, even if it is a stranger they all used to know. Despite the fact that it's been years since she's had to actively worry about things like social services, the tendency towards secrecy and caution from those first few years—when every day had been a battle not to have her family split apart and scattered in the foster system—has never fully worn off for Hester. If anything, Michael's death has merely intensified her separation anxiety and discomfort with newcomers, as she was made to abruptly realize that there are far worse things than foster care lurking in the corners to snatch the ones she loves away.

She tries very hard not to think of Dean Winchester as someone who has come to snatch her little brother away, but she doesn't succeed entirely. In a way, she feels as if Dean took Castiel away with him the first time and kept him tucked up somewhere out of reach, leaving behind the empty shell of his face and his voice and his mannerisms with none of the life or joy she had always loved so fiercely and found so bewildering. Even after their parents died, Castiel was effusive. He spoke less and wandered more, but he always came home and he smiled easily, showed affection without reserve.

The Castiel she saw after Michael died and Dean left was quick to laugh, but it was always loud and harsh to her ears and it never reached his eyes. He came home less and less, and when he did come home he wouldn't speak to them for days. He just locked himself away in his room, reading Dean's letters—or so she suspected. He grieved for Michael and pined for Dean, and all she could do was watch and know that half of his pain was down to her. She hated herself a little more every time he turned to her and laughed with dead eyes, but she hated Dean as well. How dare he come in, steal her brother's heart away, and then leave with it? Why did he not fight to stay? Where was the boy who stuck to Castiel's side like glue all summer and stuck his chin out at her stubbornly when she expressed her disapproval, when Castiel needed him the most and she was too blinded by her own grief and fears to see it?

She knows it was unfair to place any measure of blame at Dean's feet, but Hester is far from perfect. She considers her ability to admit this to herself one of her few redeeming qualities, actually, so she allowed herself to be angry at Dean when her fury at herself was not enough.

And then last night in he walked, as bold as ever but older and somehow less than when she had last seen him. He wore a look of loss that Hester found all too familiar, and all she could feel for him was sympathy because she knew exactly what it felt like to have the world ripped out from under you like so much loose carpeting. But then she got a good look at Castiel and all she could think was _finally, there you are. _Because the young man who walked into the kitchen last night was, at long last, the brother she had been missing so terribly for two years, with living eyes and a taciturn, grouchy sort of humor. She'd taken a deep breath and felt both more relieved and more tired than she could remember feeling in her life, and wanted to both hug Dean Winchester for bringing him back and throttle him for taking Castiel away from them in the first place.

It's a bewildering sort of emotional rigmarole that she has not yet had time to sort through.

Inias and Uriel have left for school and Luci for work by the time Dean and Castiel shuffle in. For a moment she feels like she's traveled in time; Castiel yawning and grins at her briefly as he takes the offered cup of coffee, and Dean keeps close by his side, leaning against the counter next to him to eat his breakfast standing up. They're literally joined at the hip, just the way they were almost from the moment they met. It makes her smile, though she tries to hide it. She still isn't sure whether Dean's return will be good for Castiel in the long run, but as she no longer has faith in her ability to know what's best for her brother, she has decided to keep her mouth shut and just be there for whatever happens.

* * *

At Dean's request, they head into town right after breakfast. He's determined to find a job as soon as possible, though Cas insists there's no hurry. It's a good twenty minutes of almost-deserted backroad and seldom-used highway between the Milton house and the edge of town, and they spend it with the windows down, the wind whipping away their voices as they sing off-key to Boston. Castiel raises his voice to match Dean's for once, and Dean laughs just because he doesn't know how not to. He doesn't remember the last time he felt this good.

The town is small and quaint, tucked out of the way between two mountains over a high hill, hidden from the rest of the world. At Cas' direction Dean pulls into a small parking lot. There are only two stores: a Subway that looks like it has seen better days, and a squat, quaint little brick building that looks more like a cottage than a business of any kind. The front door is painted a bright shade of blue, and the windows and roof edges are trimmed in a white scalloped pattern. Large wooden letters declare that this is the Valley Square Book and Brew, and smaller, hand-painted signs dangle from short lengths of chain to the right of the door: "Family owned since 1946," and "Come on in and sit a spell." Dean kills the engine and turns to Cas with a grin on his face.

"So…you wanna grab some coffee before I start filling out job applications?"

Castiel smiles at him.

"This establishment offers something much better than coffee, Dean," he says. "Follow me."

Two hours and six cups of coffee each later—Dean prefers his black with too much sugar, while Cas likes his unsweetened but with a lot of milk—they still haven't left the Book and Brew. As Cas promised, coffee is the least of its laudable attributes. The store is one of those low-ceilinged, dark wood little country places that is both fresh-scrubbed and perpetually cluttered. The warped wood of the floors gleams and the light shines unimpeded through spotless panes of glass in the few windows. The front half of the store has a little counter with a glass display case full of sandwiches and pastries, behind which a coffee machine bubbles away merrily, filling the space with its bitter-rich aroma. There's a wide windowsill lined with checkered cushions at the store's front, and a squashy old couch upholstered in faded red. Books are the only ornamentation the room boasts; solid old maple shelves chock full of them line the wall opposite the counter. The little coffee table in front of the couch is just a single shelf sitting on the floor, also full.

The light in the place seems to pool in from the windows and then get lost on its way to the back wall, probably due to the way almost every single square inch of the back half of the shop is filled, floor to ceiling, with yet more books. These books are not lined up neatly on shelves, but laid on their sides to form towering stacks that reach almost to the ceiling and make Dean very conscious of the placement of his feet and elbows. It's the most wonderful place he's ever seen, and it's funny to him that somehow Cas knew he would like it. He can't remember ever letting it slip how much he likes to read.

Dean is lounging on a rickety chair in the back corner—wedged improbably between a mountain of trashy romance novels and a very tall stack of formidable-looking leather-bound bibles—with a copy of Kurt Vonnegut's _Slaughterhouse Five _in his lap and a nearly empty coffee cup propped precariously on his left knee. Castiel decided to forego any of the civilized seating options, and sits right in the middle of one of the narrow aisles nearby with his nose buried in a collection of short stories by Robin McKinley, an author he's never heard of before but is quickly growing to love.

"Either a you boys want somethin' to eat?" Pamela—the slightly prickly and flirtatious owner—calls from the front. She is met with a duet of "nah, no thanks, we're good," and shakes her head. It's a good thing the two of them keep ordering coffee, or else she might feel compelled to tell them to find somewhere else to crash for the day.

"Well, I'm goin' on my break in five, so if you want anything now's the time."

Dean drags himself out of the book as a thought strikes him.

"Actually, yeah," he says, carefully placing Vonnegut on the arm of his chair and moving to the front of the little shop with his coffee cup in hand. "I was wondering if I could pick up a job application."

Pamela gives him a once-over and then quirks an eyebrow at him.

"You wanna work in a book store? Forgive me for the observation, but you don't really seem like the type." She leans over the counter at him with a smirk on her face that is both inviting and confident of that invitation being accepted. Dean has to hand that to her, though, because by most standards, Pamela is gorgeous. It just so happens that Dean's standards no longer match up with most; for a little over two years now, his have included eyes that are a lot bluer, hair a lot shorter and darker and messier, small smiles and long stretches of comfortable silence, and a body that is both like and entirely unlike his in ways that bewilder and fascinate him.

Dean thinks that this is an entirely inappropriate time to be having a moment about Castiel, but he's having one anyway because for the first time, he realizes that he actually hasn't looked at _anyone _else since Cas came into his life. It startles him, and the implications are kind of terrifying…but Pamela is looking less expectant and more annoyed by the second, and he should probably say something before she decides he's forgotten how to talk.

"Uh…well, didn't I just spend most of my day in one? I read." He doesn't mean for it to come out sounding so defensive, but he's completely lost his footing here. Luckily, Pamela doesn't press the issue. Instead, she shrugs and reaches underneath the counter, presenting him a moment later with a pad of paper and a pencil.

"Your bed to make as you see fit, sugar. But I don't do applications. Write down your name and your phone number, the name of your favorite book, and the answer to this question: do you or do you not bend the corners of pages down to mark your place when you're reading a book?"

"Uh…" Dean starts, embarrassed. "I don't actually have a phone number at the moment. I just moved to town yesterday," he continues hastily at Pamela's skeptical look. She shrugs again.

"Fine. No number, but I do need an address."

Dean nods, and leans over the counter to scribble down his name and Cas' home address. _His _address, for as long as he wants it to be. He shoves that thought away firmly and draws his bottom lip between his teeth, trying to decide between _On The Road _and _The Hobbit. _He's always loved books about long journeys. There's something magical about the open road for him, like anyone or any_thing _could be lurking around every corner, tucked away in every small town like a skeleton in the closet. He loves that idea for reasons he can't explain, and when he was a kid he used to imagine himself as a great tracker or hunter, running down all those secrets and dragging them before the light of day until all the world's shadowy corners were empty and there was no more reason to be afraid of the dark.

In the end he picks _The Hobbit. _Kerouac may have given him his first taste of wanderlust, but it was Tolkien who taught him what it takes to slay a dragon.

He decides to be honest about the corner folding. He knows it drives some people crazy—Sam is one of those people—but he doesn't see what the big deal is. It's not like it makes the book any less readable, and he kind of likes being able to see the little creases throughout the book showing where he's stopped every couple of pages, or where he couldn't bring himself to put the book down for several hundred.

"There you go," he says finally, handing her the slip of paper. She takes it and begins reading immediately, squinting at the words as if they're hard to decipher. Dean cringes a little, thinking he should probably have written more neatly.

Pamela's eyebrows go up as her eyes scan to the bottom of the page, and she gives him an assessing look over its top edge. Dean tries his best not to fidget as he is weighed, measured, and most likely found wanting.

"What's your favorite part of _The Hobbit," _she asks.

"Bilbo's conversation with Smaug," he says automatically. The eyebrows rise a little further.

"Explain," she says shortly. Dean shuffles his feet in spite of himself, plunging both hands into his pockets and trying to look smarter than he feels.

"Uh, well…when I was a kid…you know, a lot of stories give all the credit to the prince or knight or whatever. The guy who swings the sword or fires the arrows, he would be the main character. But in this one, that guy—Bard—he's barely a guest star. It's the smart guy, the little guy that everybody thought was useless…he's the one who really kills Smaug. Because he outsmarts him, he talks to him and finds his weaknesses. Without Bilbo, Bard would never have been able to slay the dragon. And I liked that, I guess, the idea that it isn't the biggest or the strongest or the one who swings the hardest, it's the one who thinks the fastest and uses whatever's in front of him to his advantage."

Dean's ears are pink and he doesn't understand the way Pamela is looking at him with a level of surprise he would almost find insulting, if it weren't tinged with something else that looks a lot like burgeoning respect. Dean feels a nudge at his elbow and turns to find Cas grinning at him. He relaxes by a fraction and turns back to Pamela, waiting for her to tell him to suit up or screw off. His hand twitches towards Cas' just barely, but he doesn't take hold of it.

Her eyes zero in on the movement, then take in the point where Cas' shoulder brushes Dean's, and really, if her eyebrows go any higher they'll be antennae.

"Well," she murmurs finally. "You're a surprising person, Dean Winchester, and I'm not an easy girl to surprise. I usually read people better." She shrugs, and when she speaks again her voice is back at normal volume, brisk and businesslike manner firmly in place.

"It doesn't pay more than minimum wage to start, but if you can shelve books and pour coffee, I can use you. We open at seven for the morning hoard of caffeine-enslaved workaday zombies, so you'll need to be here at six-thirty sharp. Can you do that?"

"Yes ma'am I can," Dean says, grinning widely.

"Good. You're hired. See you tomorrow morning."

* * *

Dean is practically bouncing as they leave the Book and Brew, walking fast and on the balls of his feet. Castiel follows more sedately, sliding into the passenger's side of the Impala and chuckling softly as Dean practically vaults into the driver's seat.

"You seem happy," he comments as Dean starts the car. Dean shoots him a glance as he puts the car in reverse and pulls out of the parking lot.

"I am happy," he says simply. Castiel smiles from ear to ear.

"I'm glad to hear that," he says. "I worried that perhaps Sam was wrong, and you could not find a way to be happy so far from your home."

"Honestly, Cas? Home was…Sammy, and my dad. I miss Ellen and Jo and Bobby, but the thought of being in that house without my dad there…I'd hate it. Especially with Sammy gone to college in a year. I'm glad you and my geek brother tag teamed me into leaving. And I know the bookstore isn't the best job in the world. It doesn't pay much. But…it makes me feel like this can work, y'know? Like I can _make _this work, start from the bottom and build a life here. So thanks, Cas. Really."

"I want you here, Dean. My motives are almost entirely selfish. There's no need for thanks."

Dean rolls his eyes, reaching across the console to squeeze Cas' hand.

"Thanks anyway," he says softly.

Castiel squeezes back.

"You're welcome."

* * *

Dean's mission accomplished for the day, they decide to head back to the house. Dean can't help but wince a little as he sees it in the light of day. The paint is cracked and peeling in places, the porch steps are sagging, the grass in the front yard needs to be cut, and there are some missing shingles on the roof. Dean pulls around to the back and puts the car in park, thinking hard. This is one thing he can fix, and he wants to do something for the Miltons, to thank them for letting him stay here. but doesn't move to turn it off just yet. He just isn't sure they'll let him.

"Dean?" Cas is waiting for him to move. Dean gives himself a shake and grins across the console at him, running a thumb across the knuckles of the hand he never relinquished.

"Sorry," he said. "Was just thinkin'. Let's go get lunch."

Cas doesn't ask him what he's thinking about, seeming to sense that he doesn't want to say. Hue just follows him inside, still connected at the hands. They make turkey sandwiches in the little kitchen and eat them standing side by side, leaning against the counter and sneaking kisses in between each bite. Dean hasn't been able to reign himself in when it comes to kissing Cas. If there's an opportunity there, he'll take it. He isn't sure what that makes them or what it all means, and at the moment he doesn't much care. He arrived yesterday, got a job today, and he can't see any reason he won't be waking up next to Cas tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. That nagging fear that everything is temporary and all of this could end at any moment is still there, in the back of his mind. But in his bones Dean feels a settling, as though he's found a safe place to stop and rest.

He resolves to take it. More than that, even…Dean plans to dig himself in this time and stick around no matter what. If Hester were the boasting kind, she could boast an unparalleled feat; no one will ever get him away from Cas that easily again.

"What are you thinking about?" Cas says at his elbow. Dean grins at him, eyes soft with some unnamed thing that makes Castiel's heart flip over.

"Nothin'," Dean says, and leans in for another kiss.

* * *

Five o'clock comes far too early the next morning for Dean's liking. He groans and glares at the alarm clock, willing it to shut up and read three or four so he can go back to sleep. It's funny, he should be used to this. His normal night's sleep is about four hours, maybe five, and he went to bed around eleven the night before. He blames it on Cas. As long as he's beside Dean, curled up warm with his arms wrapped loosely around Dean's shoulders and his neck just the perfect curve for Dean to tuck his face into, how is Dean ever supposed to get up and go to work?

"This is all your fault," he mumbles. Cas just grunts and starts shoving him toward the edge of the bed, ignoring Dean's indignant yelp when he flops out onto the floor.

Dean raises his head over the edge of the mattress to glare at Castiel.

"I really don't like you right now," he says. Cas just grunts again and rolls over, burying his face in the pillow and going straight back to sleep. Dean huffs, annoyed, but pulls himself up and heads to the ladder, grabbing the towel and clothes he laid out the night before from the corner of Cas' dresser.

Twenty minutes later he's showered, dressed, and feeling much more awake. He swings by the kitchen for two cups of coffee—nobody else is awake yet, not even Hester—and then heads back down the hall and climbs the ladder, carefully balancing both mugs in one hand.

"Cas?" He whispers once his head is in the room. Cas is a bundle of blankets on the bed, snoring softly and completely oblivious to Dean's presence. He grins. He sets the coffee cups down and pulls himself into the room, leaving the ladder down and the door open to keep from making more noise than necessary. Once inside, he tiptoes over to the bed with both the cups of coffee, setting one of them down on the little side table, close enough that the aroma wafts over the spot where Cas' head is buried under a blanket.

There's a moment of unnatural stillness, and then Castiel moves just enough to poke one open eye out and consider the cup of coffee. A second later he's sitting up and reaching for it, giving Dean a look that suggests he hung the stars. Dean smiles warmly.

"Thought you might need some convincing to wake up and wish me luck on my first day," he ventures. His voice is lightly teasing, but there's an undercurrent of shy hopefulness there that squeezes at Castiel's heart. He places the life-giving coffee back on the night stand and crawls to the edge of the bed, leaning up on his knees so that he and Dean are nose-to-nose. He searches Dean's eyes for only a moment before he leans in and presses a very gentle kiss to his lips.

Or well…it was meant to be gentle. But then Dean fumbles behind his back to put his coffee cup down on the dresser so he can wrap Cas up in his arms, close and tight. Then he tilts his head and opens his mouth, runs his tongue along the seam of Cas' lips, tentative and light, and Cas opens up for him fast as blinking. He brings his arms up to run his hands through Dean's hair—still damp from the shower—and cradle his head as the kiss grows longer and deeper. They explore each other's mouths until Castiel has to pull back to breathe.

He doesn't go far. They stay locked in each other's arms, staring into each other's eyes and sharing the air between them, neither one quite sure where it came from and both utterly unwilling to let go.

Dean is the one to finally speak, after what seems like a small eternity.

"I uh…I gotta go to work." His voice is husky and soft, and he makes no move to let Cas go in spite of the truth of his words.

"Yes you do," Castiel says, trying to sound amused and not quite managing it. He doesn't release his hold on Dean's head.

"Is it stupid if I'm afraid to let you go?" Dean asks. And just like that the spell is broken; Cas laughs and shakes his head, leans in to plant a kiss to Dean's forehead before extricating himself gently from Dean's arms.

"It's not stupid, but you don't have to worry," Castiel says, smoothing Dean's hair back into place where he's ruffled it. "I promise I'll be right here when you get home."

_Home, _he says, and he means their home, Dean knows. His fear doesn't disappear, but it shrinks a little, enough that he can smile and give Cas one more kiss before he turns and leaves the room. Cas doesn't follow him down or stand waving on the porch as he drives away, and Dean is glad. He's pretty sure if he saw that it would remind him way too much of saying goodbye to Sammy, and right now even the thought of saying goodbye to Cas is enough to tie his stomach into knots of anxiety.

_I am so screwed,_ he thinks. _This absolutely cannot be healthy._

Even so, he feels almost normal as he drives the winding roads into town. He has his windows down to catch the crisp late autumn breeze, and AC/DC is blaring from the radio. He hums along, tapping out the drum beats on his steering wheel, and by the time he pulls into the parking lot of the Book and Brew he's wide awake and grinning, eager at the prospect of spending the day in the little bookstore.

As it turns out, Pamela is not a morning person.

"The hell are you so cheery about?" She grouses from behind the counter. She's wearing a comically large pair of dark sunglasses and propping her head up on one hand. Dean's not sure if she's tired or just hung over, but he doesn't feel it's his place to ask.

"It's a nice morning," he says instead. "Good weather. Good coffee. Good music on the radio. Gonna be a good day, I can feel it." Pamela groans and drops her forehead to the wooden counter top.

"God, I've hired a Hallmark card. Please stop talking now."

Dean wisely decides not to respond, and instead gives his attention to the little cart of books sitting by the couch, where people put things from the front that need to be re-shelved. He has no idea how they get things from the back, much less how they return them, but this will do for now. He starts replacing the books carefully on the shelves that line the front wall, taking note of one or two things he might like to read whenever he has a break for lunch.

Before he's halfway through, he looks up to find that Pamela has moved from her perch behind the counter, and is staring at him.

"What're you doing?" She asks.

"Uh…re-shelving some books?"

"Did I tell you to do that?" She sounds annoyed, which just makes Dean get annoyed in return.

"Well no," he says, keeping his voice even. "You didn't tell me to do anything, and then you told me to shut up. So I figured I'd make myself useful until you woke up and gave me some kinda training."

She stares at him for a full minute. He spends the first thirty seconds of it still annoyed, and the last thirty worried that she might fire him. _Just what I need, to get fired from the first job I've ever had that wasn't given to me by my dad's best friend._

When Pamela finally speaks, she surprises him.

"Well, I guess that's more room for the customers when they start coming in. Get on behind the counter and I'll show you how to run the coffee maker."

By the time noon rolls around, Dean has learned how to use the coffee maker, how to create shapes in the foam on top of a cappuccino, and how to make a Book and Brew's Famous PBBH (peanut butter, banana, and honey) sandwich. He's also been massively impressed by Pamela's ability not only to know where any given book is in the store, but to pull a book quickly from any stack without disturbing those above or below it. It only works for him every third time he tries.

What he hasn't quite figured out yet is how to keep it from showing in his face whenever Pamela finds another of his buttons to push. He would swear the woman is psychic with the way she goes straight for the gut every time.

Like with Castiel, for example. Around eleven-thirty she turns to him and asks him if his boyfriend's going to come by during his lunch break, and Dean nearly chokes on his own spit. After managing to get his breath back he tells her—with what he hopes is an appropriately convincing glare—that Cas is _not _his boyfriend. She gives him the eyebrow raise of eternal and bottomless skepticism and, when he doesn't recant, mumbles something about fools in glass closets. He doesn't ask.

It doesn't help at all that when Cas comes sauntering in around one, Dean can't help but grin like an idiot as he takes his order and serves him coffee and a sandwich. Pamela has mercy on him and lets him go for lunch with nothing more than a wink and a nudge. Cas looks at him curiously as they sit down on one of the plush couches near the front.

"It seems you already have some level of camaraderie with your boss." Dean snorts.

"Camaraderie, yeah. I'm sure that's what the chubby kid on the playground calls all those atomic wedgies, too."

"What chubby kid?"

"Christ, never mind." Dean sighs and sinks back into the couch a little, holding his coffee in both hands and letting his eyes drift closed.

"Y'know it's kinda weird that I'm not even tired? Just...glad to be sitting down for a few minutes and talking to you. Missed you today." He half-opens his eyes to find Cas' and just stares for a moment, until Cas gives him a small lip-corner quirk of a smile.

"Me too. I'm afraid I was horrible to you this morning."

"The worst," Dean teases.

Cas says solemnly, "I will have to make it up to you somehow." And Dean tries really hard not to read anything into that. He wills his face to stay completely neutral. But Cas' eyes widen slightly and his face pinks, so either Dean failed completely or Cas had the same thought at the same time. Dean clears his throat, opens his mouth to change the subject.

"Well, good morning, Clarence," says a purring voice behind his head. "Haven't seen you in quite awhile."

Dean sees the way Cas freezes, and doesn't understand it. He looks up and over Cas' shoulder, taking in the slight, slender girl with the moon-like face and long, dark hair. She's standing by their couch with one hip stuck out and her arms crossed in front of her, eyeing them like she's deciding which one of them to eat first. Her smirk is a hard diagonal on her face, tight-lipped and lacking any real humor, and her eyes are both cold and wild. Dean shifts uncomfortably, turning his attention back to Cas, hoping he'll shed some light on the newcomer's identity.

Cas looks terrified. Dean's stomach drops. He watches as the dread on Cas' face dissolves into a horrible kind of resignation, just before Cas turns slowly away from him to face the girl.

"Hello, Meg."

* * *

**Author's Note:** Ack! I'm sorry it's taken me so long to update. I'm a few chapters ahead writing-wise, so I should be posting on a schedule again. Thanks so much for all your reviews and encouragement. And thanks to D for being my sounding board.


	9. Chapter 8: Saving Grace

"Hello to you," Meg drawls, a lazy and somehow unpleasant grin sliding across her face. "Aren't you gonna introduce me to your friend?" Her voice is low, slow and honeyed, dripping with malice and mocking. It's a dangerous voice, and it sends something unpleasant crawling up Dean's spine.

"Meg," Castiel says reluctantly, "This is Dean Winchester. Dean, Meg—"

"Masters," she interrupts, holding out a small, pale hand for him to shake. He leans up and takes it hesitantly. Her grip is harder than he expects, almost painful. There are fingernails digging into his skin. Dean looks her in the eye and smiles.

"Nice to meet you," he says, voice carefully cheerful and unconcerned. "How exactly do you know Cas?" He feels Cas tense up beside him, and knows he isn't going to like the answer. Meg raises an eyebrow.

"Oh sweetie. In every way imaginable." Dean hears the smug note in her voice, and rises to the bait. He can't help himself.

"Yeah, I'll bet," he says, trying to sound like he doesn't care. Like he isn't shocked or put off at all. Sure, Cas told him what went on during the two years they were apart, but somehow he hadn't exactly been expecting to meet anyone with firsthand knowledge.

"Oh yeah," Meg purrs. She seems to sense Dean's discomfort, and her grin grows more genuine. "You should see him when that top button comes undone. I know he looks all prim and wholesome, but when the lights go out he's quite a—"

"Meg," Cas rumbles, his voice a low warning. "Dean has to get back to work. I was just leaving."

"Don't be like that, Clarence," Meg pouts. "I wasn't gonna stay, anyway. Wouldn't wanna spoil your little lunch date." She practically bites off the end of the word, teeth clicking together and her smile going hard around the edges. Dean shifts uneasily in his seat. The shop isn't at its busiest, but there's a girl sitting curled on the window seat who seems a little too interested in their conversation, and a couple ordering coffee who are within earshot. Quite apart from not wanting to get fired for causing a scene, Dean doesn't really want random strangers listening in on their mini melodrama. It's none of their business.

His every instinct is telling him not to turn his back on Meg Masters, but he needs to look at Cas' face. He feels inexplicably cornered, all of a sudden, in broad daylight in an Alabama coffee shop. It's surreal in the worst way he can think of.

He allows himself just the barest glimpse of Cas, out of the corner of his eye. He's sitting stiffly, hands balled into fists and pressed hard into the cushions of the couch, staring at Meg with an odd mixture of emotions in his eyes that Dean can't quite understand. Betrayal, sadness, anger, maybe a bit of resignation. But there's a defensive cast to his posture that also reads embarrassment, and somehow that gives Dean the courage to leave them alone together. He stands.

"Cas is right, I really need to get back to work. I'll be at the counter if you want a coffee or need help finding a book." He addresses this to both of them, as if the idea of interacting more with Meg doesn't make his stomach turn. Cas nods at him and Meg turns to watch him go with a look that says she's taken his measure and come up unimpressed.

He tries not to watch surreptitiously from behind the counter, but he can't really help it. His post by the sandwiches gives him an unobstructed view of the couch, where Meg has insinuated herself into Cas' space and is saying something in a dark hum of a murmur that Dean can hear but not understand. He clenches his fists and resolutely focuses on wiping down the counter around the coffee machine, even though it's spotless.

When Pamela steps behind the register he practically runs for cover among the towers of books in the back, muttering some explanation over his shoulder that probably doesn't make any sense. He doesn't see the sympathetic expression on Pamela's face as she watches him go, but he immediately decides she's the world's greatest boss simply because she doesn't stop him or draw attention to his flight by calling him back.

He finds himself between a mountain of Stephen King with some intermingled Dean Koontz and an oddly organized pyramid of books by various political figures that are labeled "Vitriol." He tries to look busy even though he can't touch the books; he doesn't have Pamela's talent for it yet, and has no desire to bring everyone in the shop running with an avalanche of paperbacks.

Dean starts reading halfway down the good stack, craning his neck to make sense of the letters on the spines and mentally making note of which Stephen King books he'd like to add to his growing reading list. There's a copy of _The Gunslinger _near the bottom third that he's considering asking Pamela to get for him before he leaves today.

A muffled footfall sounds behind him. He turns and sees Cas, standing half-hidden behind a stack of leather bound classics and looking worried.

"Dean?"

"Where's Meg," he grunts, turning back to his stack. It isn't a question; he really doesn't want to know.

"She's gone," he says. Dean doesn't respond, or turn around. He doesn't want to ask. He doesn't want to feel this morbid curiosity or the sour burn of jealousy, either. When Cas told him about the drugs and all the random hookups, Dean really _didn't_ care. He wasn't acting or being generous. It didn't matter to him, and he'd be a hypocrite if it did. It wasn't like he'd been some virginal saint before he met Cas, after all. He understands better than most that occasionally people just want to lose themselves in something or someone else. It doesn't make a bit of difference to the two of them or how they felt before, how Dean feels _now._

But when he saw Meg, it was different. She wasn't a nameless ghost from drunken Christmases past. She was _here_. She has a face and a name, and her mean, melancholy sort of beauty matches the Cas of _now _in a way Dean hates, because it just highlights the absence of the boy Dean knew before…the one who matched up perfectly with _him. _She made Dean feel too bright, clumsy and loud just by standing there and being all soft-spoken barbs and muted, willowy grace. She made him wonder, for the first time, how different he must look to Cas. _Do you keep looking at_ me_ and wishing I could be who I was before?_

Dean knows it's unfair, but he doesn't know how to change what he feels. He doesn't want to know about Meg Masters. He wants to know how much _Cas _knows about her even less. But at the same time…he wants to know everything. Because she wasn't just a one night stand to make Cas feel better, Dean can tell. They _know _each other. She knows things about Cas that he, Dean, does not.

_And whose fault is that?_

Dean wonders, not for the first time and in spite of his good feelings the day before, whether this is a colossal mistake. _Can you do this? If you say it doesn't matter, can you mean it?_

He's been silent for too many minutes when Cas finally speaks.

"Dean. With Meg, I—we weren't—"

"Don't, Cas. Just…don't." He doesn't turn around, but his decision is made. It was made already. He's not going to go back on it because Meg Masters is someone who exists in the world. He takes a deep breath.

"I don't want you to explain her away to me," he says to the stack of books in front of him. "And don't you dare treat her like some mistake you made because I wasn't around. That's not fair to her, and it's not fair to me."

"I…Dean, I'm sorry." Dean turns around.

Cas is looking at his shoes, shoulders slumped in defeat. He's not expecting the blow…he thinks it's already fallen. Dean wonders if it would make Cas feel vindicated if he told him to fuck off. _Well too damn bad, Cas. I'm sticking._

"I don't need you to be sorry," he says, taking a step to close some of the distance between them. "I only wanna know one thing about you and her. Is it over?"

Cas looks up then, eyes full of uncertainty and wary hope.

"Is—what?"

"Is it over between you, that's all I wanna know." Dean steps in a little closer. "And Cas…it doesn't have to be. I'll understand if it's not."

The words taste like acid on his tongue, but he says them. He said he was sticking around. There were no caveats on it that he remembers. If that means letting Cas off the hook with whatever it is that's been rebuilding itself between them the last few weeks, he'll do it. He's not going to hold Cas hostage to something that happened over two years ago.

"I mean," he continues, eyes falling to linger somewhere around Cas' knee, "it's not like we made each other any promises."

He stands ready, waiting for Castiel to sigh his relief, to walk away and go find Meg. He imagines living in that house after this, and decides he'd rather sleep in his car in the woods.

A hand finds his shoulder and squeezes, prompting him to look up. Castiel is smiling at him, a bemused and indulgent look in his eyes.

"You know," he says softly, "For someone so smart, you say the stupidest things sometimes, Dean Winchester."

"Oh." Dean says stupidly. He just looks at Cas, not sure how to respond to that.

Cas waits a moment, head tilted. Finally, he sighs.

"Meg and I were over before I came to get you, Dean."

Another beat of silence. Then, "Oh!" A grin creeps across Deans face. "Yeah?"

"Yes, you ass."

Dean grabs Cas by the shoulders and pulls him into a kiss. Cas goes gladly, humming his surprise against Dean's lips. It's rough and very sweet for a moment, fading quickly into mortification when they hear a throat clearing behind them.

"As yummy as this is, guys, I'm not paying Dean to put moves on customers in the stacks while I do all the work up front."

Dean and Cas fly apart so fast that Cas loses his balance a little, and Pamela walks away laughing amid the sound of muttered curses and the muted crash of falling paperbacks.

* * *

Later that night, when jeans and shirts have been traded for soft flannel pajama pants and they're curled together under a sheet with Dean's head tucked into the curve of Cas' shoulder and Cas' fingers caressing the short hairs at the nape of Dean's neck, he feels the need to say one more thing about Meg. It's something he needs Dean to know, even if he's not sure now is the right time to tell him.

"For the record, Meg and I were over before we really got started." Dean goes stiff in Cas' arms, but doesn't move away, or put his fingers in his ears and start singing to drown Castiel out. Cas continues, voice soft and a little sad.

"Our...relationship never went much past the…the physical. She was a good friend, in her own way. She was there for me when I needed someone who would just…be there, and make no demands."

He looks down at the top of Dean's head.

"But she wasn't you. She'll never be you. I'm not in love with her."

He says it so simply, like any other words coming out of his mouth. Like the thing he's implying is just a fact, and nothing to worry about or be absolutely bone-crushingly terrified of. Maybe that's why Dean is able to stay calm.

It's the first time either of them has come close to saying it. He doesn't know what to do. He opens his mouth, maybe to say it back. But that's not what comes out.

"Cas," he says. Just that. He presses himself a little harder into Cas' arms, turns his face to the skin of Cas' chest and breathes it in. A few nights ago the thought of being skin to skin like this would have seemed monumental, and like far too much risk. Tonight, it feels natural. More than that, Dean craves it. He wonders if loving someone is like that: you start to crave the things that used to scare you, until all your fears are robbed of their sharp edges, softened and transmuted into things that keep you warm in the middle of the night.

Cas doesn't seem to be waiting for anything. He just keeps holding onto Dean, keeps running his fingers along the short hairs at the back of Dean's neck. It's comfortable, it's easy. There was something Dean meant to say, but before he can muster up the words he's falling fast asleep.

* * *

In the smallest upstairs bedroom, Inias tries and fails to go to sleep. His young mind is whirling with anxious questions about their visitor, someone both old and new. He remembers Dean from before. He remembers that when Dean left, Michael and Cassy did too. Dean brought Cassy back, but not Michael. Inias liked Dean alright before, but now he's a little afraid of him. It feels like he can _hear _the extra pair of feet walking around upstairs; pick them out from Cassy's feet. They're heavier, clumsier. They seem to echo in a way his brother's footsteps do not. That's silly, of course. There's nothing under his bed. There's nothing there in the dark that isn't there in the light. Dean's footsteps don't sound any different than other people's.

He imagines that Dean is a monster in disguise, hunting them down in dark corridors with floors that echo. Carrying them away, one by one, to some unknown place. Someplace horrible. Michael, Cassy…who comes next? Maybe him. Maybe _any_ of them.

Inias jumps up, trembling all over, and runs across the hall as fast as his awkward preteen legs will carry him. He slips into Uriel's room as quietly as possible and stands, still shivering, in the doorway.

"Go ahead, Inias," Uriel mumbles into his pillow. "Might as well."

Not needing to be told twice, Inias takes a running leap and dives into the bed, curling on the vacant side and taking deep breaths. Uriel's hand pats his hair down twice, absently, before being withdrawn.

"It's okay, Inias," he says. "There's nothing to be afraid of. Go to sleep."

Inias breathes a sigh of relief, snuggles into the covers, and is asleep in a matter of minutes.

* * *

In the large room at the back of the house, Luci sits up in bed with a book in his hands, reading softly to the girl stretched out beside him. Isadora Young, daughter of an investment banker and a full-time soccer mom. Goes by Izzy, mostly because her father hates it. Raised to be the belle of the ball, prefers being the wallflower playing poker with the wait staff by the open bar. Rebellious. Cynical. Sardonic at the best of times and utterly scathing at the worst. If he didn't know better, he'd think himself head over heels in love with her.

His gaze wanders from the words on the page occasionally, preferring instead to glide over the gentle curve of her shoulder, the bare expanse of her back, the dip at the bottom of her spine just before she disappears beneath the white edge of a sheet. He doesn't pause in his recitation; he knows the words from memory.

"…by spilled wine-wells sang heaven, hungry, and the quick cut Christbread, spitting vinegar, and all the mazes of his praise and envious tongue were worked in flames and shells."

Luci's father was a man who loved words. He loved the stories they could tell and the emotions they could evoke, but mostly he just loved words for their own sake. He loved them _because _they could tell secrets, pull the heartstrings, wet the eyes. He was not a man of many words himself, but then…any lover of words will tell you that it's never about the number one uses, but rather how well one uses them.

Every night from as far back as he can remember, Luci's father would make the rounds to each of his children before bed and read to them. He did this until they were old enough to do it for themselves. Luci doesn't know what he read to the others—he never asks and no one ever volunteers to share—but to him, Father always read poetry.

The words would flow over him, soft heavy things which sank into places in his heart and mind that nothing else could touch and settled there, throbbing with joy, and awe, and deep sadness. Even now, Luci associates poetry with emotion. He's not very good at sharing how he feels with other people, even his own brothers and sisters. But he wants _her _to know. So he reads to her.

The miracle of the thing is that she seems to speak the same language.

"A stranger has come," her sleep-softened voice says teasingly. "To share my room in the house not right in the head. A girl mad as birds."

He looks at her steadily over the top of the book he's holding, blue cloth binding almost matching the faded color of his eyes.

"Shall I compare thee," he intones seriously, "to a summer's day?"

"Oh _God,_" she groans, burying her face in her hands. "I'm sleeping with a sap!"

He grins wickedly and sets the book carefully aside, sliding down between the covers and rolling onto his side. He slips arms around her, one palm flat against the soft skin of her stomach, other arm pulling her in gently but insistently until she's spooned against him, face still turned away and obscured by the chin-length fan of her dark hair.

"Thou art more lovely," he murmurs, lips tickling her neck with every word, "and more temperate."

"I bet you say that to all the girls, Luce," she mocks him gently. He shakes his head at her, though she can't see him.

"Only the ones who can recite Thomas from memory," he returns. Izzy rolls over finally, curling herself close in his arms and looking up at him through a mess of hair with mischievous eyes.

"Well, if you like my Thomas, wait till you hear my Donne."

The intent behind the words would be clear even if she hadn't accompanied them with a hand sneaking between their bodies to slide ever-so-slowly up his naked thigh. His grin widens.

"I can't wait," he chuckles.

Their night dissolves into a different kind of poetry.

* * *

Downstairs in the living room, Hester listens to the peaceful sounds of an old house settling around her, the familiar creaks and groans, the shuffle of footsteps and the muffled voices fading into the sounds of showers running, whispered bickering, and then finally silence. Uriel and Inias are in bed. Castiel and Dean are tucked away for the night .They came home in high spirits, laughing and joshing each other, and kept it up until they locked themselves away in the attic after supper. Raphael is curled on the couch opposite her rocking chair, with his leather-bound Bible open in his lap and a look of deep concentration etched across his features. Luci is in his room with his latest girlfriend, Izzy. Hester met the girl briefly, earlier in the day: a slip of a thing, compactly built with dancers legs and shy, almond-shaped brown eyes. She was congenial, well-mannered, and soft-spoken. Beautiful, too, with her bronze complexion, high cheek bones, and glossy black hair. Only the Cheshire cat smile gave any clue as to how she and Luci fit together. That smile held secrets.

Hester invited her for dinner, much to Luci's chagrin. Izzy seemed nervous and not a little perplexed at the invitation.

She can hear them now in Luci's room; he's reading to her. The gentle sing-song lilt of his voice murmurs words Hester can't understand through the walls in a soothing rhythm.

"It's wrong of him to take that girl to bed every night," Raphael says quietly. "And even more wrong to have Castiel sharing a room with Dean Winchester." Hester sighs and directs her gaze across the room to her younger brother. With his solemn eyes and perpetual frown, he's always reminded her of a preacher at a sinner's funeral. Even when he was little.

"Let it alone, Raphe," she says gently. "It makes them happy. There's little enough in the world that does without us denying it when we find it."

Raphael's frown deepens.

"In the Bible it says-"

"Judge not," Hester interrupts. "For one thing. Lest ye be judged. I remember that part quite clearly."

"It also says that by their fruits you'll know them."

"In that case, you should wait until there's some fruit to know them by," she says pointedly. That shuts him up. Raphael goes back to his reading, looking perplexed.

Hester smiles into her coffee cup. The children are in bed, and Castiel has come home for the time being. Luci is happier than she's seen him in ages, and Raphael is lively enough to argue with her. Those improvements almost make up for all the blank spaces in the short list of people she loves who should be under this roof right now.

It isn't perfect, but it's the best she's felt at the end of a day in a long time.

* * *

**Author's Note**: Happy Destiel Day! In order to celebrate I thought I'd post a second chapter sooner rather than later. It's a bit short and uneventful, but I hope you like it anyway. 3


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